LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

&pif 6op)ri!_ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



( 




GEN. JAMES A. GARFIELD. 




GEN. GARFIELD'S FORMER RESIDENCE AT HIRAM, OHIO. 




MRS. JAMES A. GARFIELD. 




MARY. JAMES. HARRY. IRWIN. ABRAM 

GENERAL GARFIELD'S CHILDREN. 



GEN. GARFIELD 

FROM THE 

LOG CABIN 



TO THE 



WHITE HOUSE, 

Including his Early History, War Record, Public 
Speeches, Nomination, Inauguration, Assassin- 
ation, Death and Burial. 



ALSO 



THE WORLD'S EULOGIES 



REV. ISAAC ERRETT, EX-GOY. C. K. DAVIS, 

PROF SWING, RABBI LILIENTHAL, 

DR. TALMAGE, JOHN G. WHITTIER, 

PRESIDENT HINSDALE, Lord Bishop of Montreal, 
HON. J. H. RHODES, REV. T. K. NOBLE, 

HENRY WATTERSON, J. FREEMAN CLARKE 
HENRY WARD BEECHER, JUDGE REA, 
ROBERT COLLYER, SENATOR VOORHEES, 

HON. EMERY A. STORRS, BISHOP CLARKSON, 
HON. R. M. MATHEWS. EX-GOV. OGLESBY, 

CHAS. T. BUCK. HON. ROGER A. PRYOR 

AND MANY OTHERS. 



jJdited by 



i.3Sj7}\^' 



CHICAGO: '' 
RHODES & McCLURE, PUBLISHERS. 

1881. 






Entered according' to Act of Congress, in tlie year 1881, by 
J. B. IWfClurc A: K. S. Kliodes, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, ut Washing-ton. 



A new interest now attaclies to every incident, and story, 
and everything that entered into and made up the great life 
of the immortal Garfield. This volume presents, in an 
exceedingly interesting manner, all the essential points in 
the life of the martyred President, including that seem- 
ingly saddest of all events, his assassination, over which, 
it is said, three hundred millions of people mourned. Near 
the close of the volume will be found the linal funeral service 
on the great " Memorial Day," an event unparralleled in 
the history of man. 

J. B. McCLURE. 

Chicago, Oct. 10. 1881. 



.^i^ 



Page. 
Anecdote of Gen. GaiTield at Murfreesboro, Illustrating a 

Noble Trait of His Character i;JO 

Anecdote of Garfield's Early Life— His Greatness Antici- 
pated by a Woman in Connection with a Laughable In- 
cident 33 

An Interesting Heniiniscence— Garfield and Arthur both 
School Teachers in the Same IJoorn at Xorth Pownal, 
Vermont 33 

An Interesting Story in Connection with the Sick-room- 
Gen. Garfield as a Reader 41 

An Interesting Reminiscence of Garfield's Youth— A Letter 
lie AVrote Twenty-three Years Ago tliat Helped to Make 
a College President, and that President Xow Reads It 
iu His Students " 119 

A Pen Pict are of Garfield 34 

A Splendid Record— Summary of Garfield's Labors— Tlje 

Rewards of Industry 49 

A Trying Ordeal— In the Hands of the Doctors— Melting 
Down an "Ague Cake" with Calomel!— How the Cruci- 
ble (Young Gs^rfield) Endured It— He is Saved by a Kind 

Mother 2/ 

Arthur's Letter of Acceptance 163 

X. 



CONTE^■TS. 



Boyhood of Gen. Garfield— The Farmer Boy on the Tow- 
path— A Tough Time— Good Health and Indomitable 
Energy Triumphant IS 

C 

Chester A. Arthur— Sketch of His Life 150 

Col. Garfield's First Great Battle— He Defeats Humphrey 

Marshall and Wins a Brigadier-Generalship 58 

Comparative Statement of Ballots 93 

Closing Scenes in Garfield's War Record— Why He Left the 

Army G6 

ID 

Dignity of American Citizenship— Garfield's Speech in Wash- 
ington, June 1(5, 18S0 132 

Dying Words of Gen. Garfield's Father— He Leaves His Four 

Children in Care of His Wife 115 

Enthusiasm on Fire — Making the !N'omination of Gen. Gar- 
field Unanimous at the Chicago Republican Conven- 
tion — Speeches of Messrs. Conkling, Logan, Beaver, 
Hale, Pleasants, and Elarrison 98 

IP 

First Vote for Garfield in the Chicago Convention — The Man 
Who Gave It Voted for Zachary Taylor and Abraham 
Lincoln Under Like Circumstances ... 107 

Full Details of Garfield's Pound Gap Expedition— Strategy 

and Victory — Battle of Pittsburg Landing, etc 59 



CONTENTS. 

a- 

Garfield at College— He Graduates with High Honors — His 
Personal Appearance at This Period that of a Xewly 
Imported Dutchman 27 

Garfield a Home— His Residence in Mentor — His Family 

and His Mother 42 

Garfield in War — How He Volunteered to Put Down the. 
Rebellion, and was Promoted— Interesting Incidents on 
the Field of Battle 53 

Garfield Nomination Joke ill 

Garfield on the Democracy — Extract from One of His Old 

Speeches— His Walk in the Democratic Graveyard 73 

Garfield "Photographed" Ly"Gath"— A Remarkably 'In- 
teresting Pen Picture of the Great Man — His Physical, 
Social, Moral, and Intellectual Powers 46 

Garfield's Celebrated Speech at the Andersonville Reunion 
Held at Toledo, Ohio, Oct. 3, 1870- How the General 
Looks " AVithout Gloves ! " 78 

Garfield's Extra Session Speech — Turning on the Light 128 

Garfield's First Hide on the Cars — First Visit to Columbus- 
First School, Etc.— Interesting Reminiscences 126 

Garfield's Great Speech at Columbus, Acknowledging His 

Election as United States Senator 83 

Garfield's Life in Hiram Sketched by President Hinsdale, of 

Hiram College— An Interesting History 116 

Garfield's School Days — He Attends a High School— Takes 
His Frying-pan Along— The Old, Old Story of What 
Grit AVill Do 25 

Garfield's Speech at the Wisconsin Republican Reunion- 
Outlining the Condition of the Country 76 

Gen. Garfield as a Wood-Chopper — He Contracts to Put Up 
Twenty-five Cords— His Visit to Cleveland Harbor, 
and Laughable Interview with " The Captain 19 

Gen. Garfield's Letter of Acceptance 142 



CONTENTS. 

Gen. Garfield En Route for Home After His Nomination tor 
President — From Illinois to Oliio— Incidents and "Wel- 
comes by the Way 102 

Gen. Garfield is Called to the Halls of Congress from the 
Fields of AV^ar— How it was Done— Early Experience ul" 
the Parmer Boy on the Floor 69 

Gen. Garfield on the Floor of the Great Chicago Convention 
—Full Text of His Eloquent Speech Nominating John 
Sherman for President— Delivered June 5, -1880 87 

Gen. Garfield's First Important Speech After His Nomina- 
tion — It is Delivered to the Students of Hiram College 
on " Commencement Day "—An Interesting Address. . . 44 

Gen. Garfield's Marriage— A Happy Home— What tlie Gen- 
eral Says of His Wife 31 

Gen. Garfield's Proclamation to the Citizens of Sandy 

Valley (32 

Gen. Garfield's Speech Before the Hiram College Eeunion 
Association — The Commencement Day of 1880 Long to 
be Remembered 123 



I 



Heroic Conduct of Gen. Garfield on the Field of Chicka- 
mauga— Driving Back Longstreet's Columns and Saving 
Gen. Thomas 03 

How the News of Garfield's Nomination was Received at 

Hiram College— Ringing tlie Old Bell 107 



Increasing Fame of the College President— His Election to 

the State Senate, and What He Did 32 



CONTENTS. 

o 

Off the Tow-path— Why Young Garfield Abandoned tlie 
Canal— A I'rovidential Escape that Set Him to Think- 
ing and Sent Hiui Home 22 



Professor Garfield in the Hiram Eclectic Institute— He 
Becomes President of the Institution — How He Became 
a Preacher .• 29 

President Hinsdale's Stories and Tribute to Gen. Garfield, 
the Man who was in Hiram College Before Him— The 
Canal and AVood-Chopi)ing Incidents — How He Made 
Success Possible, and Why He Succeeded 36 



Seventeen years a Member of Congress — Garfield's Great 

Work in the Halls of Legislation — A Triumphant Leader 71 

Summary of Ballots in the National Piepublican Conven- 
tion— Nominating Garfield for President 97 

T 

The Break to Garfield— Thirty-fourth Ballot 94 

The Canal Story, Told by Garfield's Employer 134 

The Way Garfield Got His Military Education 140 

The General and Fugitive Slave 141 

The Habits and Methods of Garfield 138 

" The ]\[embers from New York " 133 

The Turning Point in Garfield's Life 135 

The Thirty-fifth Ballot ... 95 

The Thirty-sixth and Last Ballot— Garfield Nominated 96 

The Full Particulars of the Assassination 166 

The Story of Col. Rockwell 174 

The Suffering President— Incidents on the Sick Bed 178 

The Medical Record 180 

The Run to Long Branch 181 

The Engineer'.s Story. 185 

The Last Days' Bulletin.. 188 

The Death Bed Scene 189 



CONTENTS. 

The Autopsy 191 

The Mother and Her Dead Son 193 

The Services in the Francklyn Cottage 196 

The Body in State in the Capitol Rotunda at Washington. .. 198 

Services at the Vault in Cleveland 200 

' The End," by J. G. Holland 209 

The World Wide Sympathy 210 

Affecting Incidents 211 

The Birth Place of Gen. Garfield— How it Looked on the 

Great Memorial Day 213 

The Assassination of President Lincoln 219 

The Maxims of Garfield 226 

What Foreign-Born Citizens say of tlie Convention 108 

Who is General Garfield 113 

Who Have been Assassinated Among Public Men During 

the Last 30 Years 216 



^^<:i<:>i^i^ca\>l<yn. 



HOME LIFE - 17 

WAR RECORD 53 

SPEECHES 69 

GARFIELD'S NOMINATION 91 

MISCELLANEOUS - - - - 113 

ASSASSINATION, DEATH AND BURIAL . - - 166 




" The man who -wants to serve his country mnst put 
himself in the line ot its leading thought, and that is 
the restoration of business, trade, commerce, industry, 
sound political economy, hard money, and the honest 
payment of all obligations, and the man who can add any- 
thing in the direction of accomplishing any of these 
purposes is a public l)enefactor." — {Garfield in Congress^ 
Dec. 10, 1818.) 



STORIES AND SKETCHES 

Greneral Grartielc 

HOME LIFE. 



Boyhood of Gen. Garfield- The Famer Eoy-On the Tcw-path -ATcugb 
Time-Good Health and Indomitable Energy Triumphant. 

General James Abrara Garfield, the farmer boy, canal 

boatman, carpenter, school teacher, college protestor, 

preacher, soldier, congressman, the popular candidate of 

the Republican party for Presidential honors, was born m 

the township of Orange, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, fifteen 

miles from Cleveland, on the 19th of November, 1831. 

His lather, Abraham Garfield, was born in Otsego County, 

Kew York, and was of a family that had resided iR 

Massachusetts for several generations. His mother, Ehza 

Ballon, niece of the Eev. Hosea Ballon the noted 

gniversalist clergyman, was born in Cheshire County, ^ew 

Hampshire. The General is, therefore, of New l&.ngland, 

' James Abram was the youngest of four children. The- 
father died in 1833, lea^ang the^ family dependent hih.u a 



18 8T0RIB8 AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

small farm and the exertions of the mother. There was 
nothing about tlie elder Garfield to distinguish him from 
the other plodding farmers of the rather sterile township 
of Orange. JVo one could discern any qualities in him, 
which, transmitted to the next generation, might help to 
make a statesman, unless it was industry; but his wife, wliu 
is still living at an advanced age, was always fond of reading 
when she could get leisure from her hard household duties, 
and was a thoroughly capable woman, of strong will, stern 
principles, and more than average force of character. 

Of the children, no one besides James has made the 
slightest mark in the world. The older brother is a farmer 
in Michigan, and the two sisters are farmers' wives. 

The General had a tough time of it when a boy. He 
toiled hard on the farm early and late in summer, and 
worked at the carpenter's bench in winter. The best of it 
was he liked work. There was not a lazy hair on his head- 

lie had an absorbing ambition to get an education^ and 
the only I'oad opened to this end seemed that of manual 
labor. Heady money was hard to get in- those days. 

The Ohio Canal ran not far from where he lived, and, 
finding that the boatmen got their pay in cash, and earned 
better wages tlian he could at farming or carpentry, he 
hired out as a driver on the tow-path, and soon got up to 
the dignity of holding the helm of a boat. Then he 
determined to ship as a sailor on the lakes, but an attack 
of fever and ague interfered with his plans. 

He was ill three nu^nths, and wlien he recovered he 
decided to go to a school called Geauga seminary, in an 
adjoining county. His mother had saved a small sum of 
money, which she gave him, together with a few cooking 
utensils and a sack of provisions. He hired a small room 
and cooked his own food to make his expenses as light as 



HOME LIFE. 19 

p()»sil)le. lie paid his own way after that, ne^■er calling on 
his Hiother for any more assistance. 

I'y working at . the carpenter's bench mornings and 
evenings and vacation times, and teaching conntry schools 
tluriiiii- the winter he manay-ed to attend the seniiniiry 
during the spring and fall terms, and to save a little money 
toward going to college. He had excellent heath, a robust 
frame, and a capital memory, and the attempt to combine 
mental and physical work, which has broken down many 
farmer boys ambitions to get an education, did not hurt 
him. 



Gen. Garfield as a Wood-Cliopper— He Contracts to Put Up Twenty-five Cords 
—His Visit to Cleveland Harbor, and Laughable 
Interview with the " The Captain." 

The friends and early companions of the (reneral relate 
wonderful stories of his precocity, telling how he could 
read at 3 years, and possessed remarkable capacit^' for com- 
mitting to memory what he had read, so that at the age ■ 
when boys usually learn their letters he was somewhat ad- 
vanced in literature. During all the years of boyhood lie 
simplv worked and attended school, and irrew strong and 
hearty, until, at the age ot sixteen, he was fully capable of 
doing a strong man's Avork on the farm. In the spring of 
this year he went to the Townshij) of Newburg, now in the 
limits of Cleveland, to chop cord wood. 

He took a job of putting up twenty -five cords, and man- 
fully aid he set himself in his solitude to his task. To the 
north of him, as he worked, was the lake in slaty bine. 
There, in miniature, was the ocean of which he had so long 
dreamed. Everything had to be won by little. The ocean 
was a great way off. He could not early reach it. He 
would begin his life of a sailor on the lake, and then seek a 



20 ^KfinE!^ A.\I) ."iK ETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

wider range upon the " ocean blue." The work of wood- 
chopping was vigorously prosecuted, and time flew with 
great rapidity. 

He felt that the pay tor wood-chopping was hardly Huffi- 
cient for a start, and so he hired out to a Mr. Treat, during 
the haying and Jiarvesting season, but he still dreamed on. 
When this job was linislied he went home to his mother 
and announced his intentions. She knew well that it was- 
useless to oppose him, now that he had really set his heart 
upon it, and so, in the midst of prayer and God-blessings^ 
he departed. 

He visited the harbor in Cleveland. Here he found a 
single vessel about to depart for a trip up the lakes. In all 
his dreams he had never seen a Captain except as a sort of" 
mixture of angel and dashing military officer in blue coat 
and brass buttons. He went on board this vessel and in- 
quired for the Captain. He was told, ^vith a smile, by one 
of the men, that the Captain won Id come u]> from the hold 
in a few minutes. He had not lung to wait. Presentl;)' a 
drunken wretch, brutal in every feature, came up, swearing; 
at every step. 

" There is the Captain," said one of the men. 

The country lad stepped forward and modestly asked if a 
hand was wanted. 

Turning upon the youth, the brute poured a volley of, 
pent-up curses and oaths, and made no other answer. 

The poor awkward boy was for a moment amazed, and 
then, turning away, walked about to recover himself. He 
was by no means cured of his longing for the sea; he had 
too strong a will for that, and this had taken too strong a 
hold upon him. Kevolving the matter in his miad, he 
came to the conclusion that he had failed because he lacked 
some initiatory process. As the lake was to the ocean, so 
should the canal be to the lake ; he would apply at the canal 
and gain some training there. 



HOME LIFE. 21 

Yotmg Garfield Tries tlie Canal— Thirteen Duckings on the First Trip, and one 
Fight— The First Victory. 

Kotwithstanding liis poor success with "the Captain," 
young Garfield determined to persevere, and the very first 
canal-boat he \dsited wanted a driver, and he got the place. 
The General avers that, by actual count, he fell into the 
canal thirteen times on the first trip. Knowing nothing 
of tlie art of swimming, he came very near drowning. He 
woi'ked faithfully and well, however, and at the end of his 
first round trip he was promoted from driver to bowsman. 

On his first. trip to Beaver, in this new capacity, he had 
his first fight. He was standing on the deck, with the 
netting pole against his shoulder. Some feet away stood 
Dave, a great, good-natured boatman, and a firm friend 
•of the young General. The boat gave a lurch, the pole 
slipped from the youth's shoulder, and flew in the direction 
of Dave. 

"Look out, Dave!" called Garfield; but the pole was 
there first, and struck Dave a severe blow in the ribs. 

Gai-field expressed his sorrow, but it was of no use. 
Dave turned upon the luckless boy with curses, and 
threatened to thrash him. Garfield knew he was innocent 
■even of carelessnesr^. 

The threat of a flogging from a heavy man of 35 roused 
the hot Gai"field blood. Dave rushed upon him witli his 
head down, like an enraged bull. As he came on, Garfield 
«prang one side and dealt him a powerful blow just back 
of and under the left ear. Dave went to the bottom of the 
boat with his head between two beams, and his now heated 
foe went after him, seized him by the throat, and lifted the 
same clenched hand for another blow. 

"Pound the blamed fool to death, Jim," called the 
appreciative Captain. "Tfhehaint no more sense to get 
mad at accidents ]r' orto die; " and, as the youth hesitated, 
**W]iv don't von strikf'.' Dlame me, if I'll interfere." 



22 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

He could not; the man was down, heljDless in his power. 
Dave expressed regret at his rage. Garfield gave him his. 
hand, and they were better friends than ever. 

The victory gave the young man much prestige among 
the canal men. The idea that a boy could tlirash Dave 
was something that the roughs could not understand. 



Off the Tow-Path.— Why Young Garfield Abandoned the Canal.— A Provi- 
dential Escape that Set Him to Thinking and 
Sent Him Home. 

The General says that two causes were instrumental in 
causing him finally to abandon the canal. One was his 
mother, and the other was the ague cake in his side. 

He had worked but a short time when he began to feel 
the ague in his system, and finally it assumed a very seri- 
ous form. 

His many falls into the water, and the thorough M'etting- 
which fi)llowed increased his disease, and finally one especi- 
ally heavy fall led him to reason quite fully over the nuit- 
ter. It was night, and in the darkness he grasped for 
something to draw himself out of the water. As luck 
would have it he chanced to reach thedragrope of the boat. 
Hand over hand he grasped the rope, and finally he drew 
himself up. 

He thouirht of his mother, and how he had left her with 
the intention of going upon the lake, and how she still 
believed he was there. 

The next day's warm sun dried his clothes, but he 
was sicker than ever with the chills, and he determined 
upon reaching Cleveland to go and visit his mother and lav 
ofi:' long enough to get well. 

It was after dark when he approached the home of the 
widow and or]>hans. Coming quietly near he heard her 



HUME LIUE. 23 

voice in prayer within. He Ijowed and listened as the fer- 
vent prayer ^vent on. He lieard her pray for him. 

When the voice ceased lie softly raised the latch an<l 
entered. Her prayer was answered. Not fill that solemn 
time (I'd he know that his going away had crushed her. 



A Trying Ordeal— In the Hands of the Doctors- Melting Dowu an ' A^ae 

Cake " with Calomel !— How the Crucible (Young Garfield) Endured 

It— He is Saved by a Kind Mother. 

After the terrible ducking and narrow escape that closed 
the labors of young Garfield on the canal, lie was at, ouco 
prostrated with the "ague cake," as the liardnebs of tiie leit 
side is popularly called. One of the old school JVI.D.'h 
salivated him, and for several awful months lie lay on tlic 
bed with a board so adjusted as to conduct tiie tlow 
of saliva from his mouth while the cake was disso!vin<»- 
nnder the intiuenceot calomel, as the doctor said! 

Nothing but the indissoluble consrirution given him by 
his father cai-ried him through. ll((wever it fare<t with 
that (»l)durate cake, his passion for tlu st;;i survived, am! lie 
intended to return to the canal. The wise, sagacious iu.e 
of the mother won. She took i-.onnsol of other helps. 
Duriug the dreary months with tt-ndi-r watcJifulnt:.>-s she 
cared for him. She trusted in his noble nature; she 
trusted in good taitli that, although he constantly talked 
of carrying out his old plans, he would abandon them. 

Xot tor years did he know the agony these words cost 
her. She merely said, in lier sweet, quiet v/ay: 

' James, you're sick. If you return to the canal, 1 lear 
you will be taken down again. I have been thinkijiL' it 
ovei". It seems to me yow had l)etter go to school this 
spring, and then, with a term in the fall, you may be lible 
to teach in the winter. It you can teach winters and want 



24 BTOBJEii AND SKETCHES OF lARFlELD 

to go oil the canal or lake summers, you will have 
employment the year round." 

Wise woman that she was, in his broken condition it did 
not seem a bad plan. While he revolved it, she went on: 

" Your money is now all gone, but your brother Thomas 
nnd I will be able to raise $17 for you to start to school on, 
an! you can perhaps get along, after that is gone, upon 
your own resources." 

llu took the advice and the money, — the only fund ever 
contributed by others to him either in fitting or passing 
•throagh college, — and went to The Geauga, a seminary at 
Oluvtor. 

In speaking of this longing for the sea, the General said, 
half regretfully : 

" But even now, at times, the old feeling, (the longing 
for the sea) comes back," and, walking across the room, he 
turned, with a flashing eye: "I tell you I would rather 
now command a fleet in a great naval battle than to do 
anything else on this earth. The sight of a ship often fills 
me with a strong fascination, and when upon the water, 
and my fellow-landsmen are in the agonies of sea-sickness, 
I am as tranquil as when walking the land in the serenest 
weather." 

And so the mother conquered. Wlien a thirst for 
knowlprlrrp wcis f»nce e!^"'endered in the youth, the mother 
stood in no danger of losing him. But during all those 
years of education, there were obstacles of great magnitude 
to be overcome, poverty to be struggled against, and 
victories to be won. 



HOME LIFE. 25 

Garfield's School Days— He Attends a High School— Takes His Frying-pan 
Along-The Old Old Story of What Grit Will Do. 

Up to the time of young Garfield's canal experience he 
eeemed to have cherished little ambition for anything 
beyond the prospects oft'ered by the laborious liie he had 
entered. But it happened that one of the winter schools 
was taught by a promising young man named Samuel 
Bates. He had attended a high school in an adjacent 
township, known as the " Geauga Seminary," and with the 
proselyting spirit common to young men in the back- 
woods, who were beginning to taste the pleasures of edu- 
cation, he was very anxious to take back several new 
students with him. 

Garfield listened to Mr. Bates, and was tempted. lie 
had intended to become a sailor on the lakes, but he was 
yet too ill to carry out this plan, and so he finally resolved 
to attend the high school one term, and postpone sailing 
till the next fall. 

That resolution made a scholar, a Major General, a 
Senator-elect, and a Presidential candidate out of him, 
instead of a sailor before the m ast on a Lake Erie schooner. 
The boy never dreamed of what the man would be. 

Early in March, 1849, young Garfield reached Chester 
(the site of the Geauga Seminary) in company with his 
cousin and another young man from his village. Thoy car- 
ried with them frying-pans and dishes as well as their fevv 
school books. They rented a room in an old, unp;un1ed 
frame house near the academy, and went to work. Garfield 
bought the second Algebra he had ever seen, and l)eg!!n \<> 
study it. English Grammar, JS^atural Philosophy, .aid 
Arithmetic were the list of his studies. 

His mother had scraped together a little sum of money 
to aid him at the start, which she grave him with 
her blessintj^ when he left his liumljlc home. After that he 



26 STORI£S AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

never had a dollar in his life that he did not earn. As soon 
as he began to feel at home in his classes he sought among- 
the carpenters of the village for employment at his trade. 

He worked moi-nings, evenings, and Saturdays, and thus- 
earned enough to pay his way. When the summer vaca- 
tion came he had a longer interval for work; and so when 
the fall term opened he had enough money laid up to pay 
his tuition and give him a start again. 

By the end of the fiill term Garlield had made such 
progress that a lad of 18 thought he was able to teach a 
district school. Then the future seemed easy to him. The 
fruits of the winter's teaching were enough, with his 
economical management to pay the expenses of the spring^ 
and fall terms at the academy. Whatever he could make 
at his morning and evening work at his carpenter's trade 
would go to swell another fund, the need of which he had 
begun to feel 

For the backwoods lad, village carpenter, tow-path canal 
hand, would-be sailor, had now resolved to enter college. 
'' It is a great point gained," he said years afterwards,, 
"when, in our hurrying times, a young man makes up his 
mind to devote several years to the accomplishment of 
definite work." It was so now in his own case. With a 
definite purpose before him he began to save all his. 
earnings, and to shape all his exertions to the one end. 

Through the summer vacation of 1850 he woi-ked at his 
trade, helping to build houses within a stone's throw of 
the academy. During the next session of the academy 
he was able to abandon boarding himself, having found a 
boarding house where he found the necessaries of life for 
$1 per week. 

The next winter he taught again, and in the spring 
removed to Hi ram to attend the "Institute" over which 
he Avas afterward to preside. So he continued teaching a 



1 C 1 i LIFE. I'T 

ti'iiu eucli winter, attending school through spring and fall, 
and keeping up with his classes Ly ja-ivate study during 
the time he was absent. Before he had left Hiram 
Institute he was the finest Latin and Greek scholar that the 
school liad ever seen — and at this day he reads and writes 
the language fluently. 

At last, by the summer of 1854, the carpenter and tow- 
path l)oy had gone as far as the high school and academies 
of his native region could carry him. He was now nearly 
23 years old. The struggling, hard-working boy had de- 
veloped into a self-reliant man. 

He was the neighborhood wonder for scholarship, and a 
general lavorite for the hearty, genial ways that had never 
deserted him. He had been brought up in " the Church 
of the Disciples," as it loved to call itself, of which 
Alexander Campbell was the great light. At an early age 
he liad followed the example of his parents in connecting 
liimself with this church. His life corresponded with lii's 
profession. Everybody believed in and trusted him. 

He liad saved from his school-teaching and carpenter 
work aljout half enough money to carry him through the 
two years in which he thought he could finish the ordinary 
colleore course. 



Gwfleld at College-He Graduates with Hign Honors-His PenoBal Appear- 
ance at this Period that of a " Newly-Imported Dutchman. " 

When he was 23 years of age young Garfield concluded 
he had got ab(jut all there was to be had in the obscure 
cross-i-(mds academy. He calculated that he had saved 
about half enough money to get through college, provided 
lie could begin, as he hoped, with the Junior year. He 
was o-rowinff old, and he determined that he must go to 
ccileirc that fall. 



28 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

How to procure the rest of tlie needed money was a 
mystery; but at last his good character, and the good will 
this brought him, solved the question. 

He was in vigorous justy health, and a life insurance 
policy was easily obtained. This he assigned to a gentle- 
man who thereupon loaned him what money was needed, 
knowing that if he lived he would pay it, and if he died 
the policy would secure it. 

Pecuniary difficulties thus disposed of, he was ready to 
start. But where? He had originally intended to attend 
Bethany College, the institution sustained by the church of 
which he was a member, and presided over by Alexander 
Campbell, the man above all others whom he had been 
taught to admire and revere. But as study and experience 
had enlarged his vision, he had come to see that there were 
better institutions outside the limits of his peculiar sect. 

So in the fall of 1854 th§ pupil ot Geauga Semiuary.and 
the tliram Institute applied for admission at the venerable 
dooi-s of Williams College. He knew no graduate of the 
college and no student attending it; and of the President 
he only knew that he had published a volume of lectures 
which he liked, and that he had written a kindly word to 
him when he spoke of coming. 

The Western carpenter and village school-teacher re- 
ceived many a shock in the new sphere he had now entered. 
On every hand he was made to feel the social superiority of 
his fellow-students. Their ways were free from the awk- 
ward habits of the untrained laboring youth. Their speech 
was free from the uncouth phrases of th« provincial circles 
in which he moved. Their toilets made the liandiwork of 
his village tailor sadly shabby. Their free-handed expen- 
ditures contrasted strikingly with his enforced parsimony. 
To some tough- fibred hearts these would have been only 
petty annoyances. To the warm, social, generous mind of 



HOME LIFE. 29 

young Garfield they seem, from more than one indication of 
his college life that we can gather, to have been a source of 
positive anguish. 

But he bore bravely up, maintained the advance standing 
in the junior class to which he had been admitted on his 
arrival, and at the end of his two years' course (in 1856) 
bore oft' the metaphysical honor of his class — reckoned at 
Williams among the highest within the gift of the institu- 
tion to her graduating members. 

But now, on his return to his home, the young man who 
had gone so far East as to old Williams, and had come back 
decorated with her honors, was thought good for anything. 

A daguerreotype of him taken about this time represents 
a rather awkward youth, with a shock of light hair stand 
ing straight up from a big forehead, and a frank, thought 
ful face, of a very marked German type. There is not, 
however, a drop of German blood in the Garfield family, 
but this picture would be taken for some Fritz or Carl just 
over from the Fatherland. 



Proffessor Garfield in the Hiram Eclectic Institute.— He Becomes President 
of the Institution.— How He Became a Preacher. 

Before he went to college Garfield had connected him- 
self with the Disciples, a sect having a numerous member 
ship in Eastern and Southern Oliio, West Virginia, and 
Kentucky, where its founder, Alexander Campbell, had 
traveled and preacliL-d. 

The principal peculiarities of the denomination are their 
refusal to formulate their beliefs into a creed, the indepen- 
dence of each congregation, the hospitality and fraternal 
feeling of the members, and the lack of a regular ministry. 

Wlicn Garfield returned to Ohio it was natural that he 
should soon gravitate to the struggling little school of the 



30 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

youni^- sect at Ilirain, Portage county, near his Ijoyliood's 
home. 

Here he was straightway made tutor of Latin and Greek 
in the Hiram Eclectic Institute, in which only two years 
before he had been a puj)il, and so he began to work for 
money to pay his debts. So high a position did he take, 
and so popular did he become, that the next year he was 
made President of the institute, a position which he con- 
tinued to hold until his entrance into political life, but a 
little before the outbreak of the war. 

Two years of teaching (during which time he married) 
left him even with the world. Through the school year of 
1858-9 he even began to save a little money. At the same 
time he commenced the study of law. 

Iliram is a lonesome country village, three miles from a 
railroad, built upon a high hill, overlooking twenty miles 
of cheese-making country to the southward. It contains 
fifty or sixty houses clustered around the green, in the cen- 
ter of which stands the homely red-brick college structure. 
Plain living and high thinking was the order of things at 
Hiram College in those days. The teachers were poor, the 
pupils were poor, and the institution was poor, but there 
was a great deal of hard, faithful study done, and many 
ambitious plans formed. 

The young President taught, lectured, and preached, and 
all the time studied as diligently as any acolyte in the tem- 
}de of knowledge. He frequently spoke on Sundays in the 
churches of the towns in the vicinity to create- an interest 
in'the college. 

Among the Disciples any one can preach who has a mind 
to, no ordination being required. From these Sunday dis- 
coiwses came th-e story that Garfield at one time was a 
minister. He never considered himself as such, and. never 
had any intention of finding a career in the pulpit. His 



HOME LIFE, 31 

ambition, if he had any outside of the school, hij in the 
direction of hiw and politics. 



een. Garfield's Marriage— A Happy Home— What the Greneral says of his Wife. 

During- his professorship at Hiram, Garfield married 
Miss Lucretia Iludolph, daughter of a farmer in the 
neighborhood, whose acquaintance he had made while at 
the academy, where she was also a pupil. 

She was a quiet, thoughtful girl, of singularly sweet and 
refined disposition, fond of study and reading, possessing a 
warm heart and a mind with the capacity of steady growth. 

The marriage was a love affair on both sides, and has 
been a thoroughly happy one. Much ot Gen. Garfield's 
subsequent success in life may be attributed to the never- 
failing sympathy and intellectual companionship of his 
wife and the stimulus of a loving home circle. The yonng 
couple bought a neat little cottage fronting on the college 
campus, and began their wedded life j^oor and in debt, but 
with brave hearts. 

Speaking ot his wife recently, Mr. Garfield said: 

I have been wonderfully blessed in the discretion of my wife. 
She is one of the coolest and best-balanced women I ever saw. 
She is unstampedable. There has not been one solitary instance 
of my public career where I suffered in the smallest degree -or 
any remark she ever made. It would have been perfectly natui-al 
for a woman often to say something that could be misinterpreted ; 
but without any design, and with the intelligence and coolness 
of her character, she has never made the slightest mistake that I 
ever heard of. With the competition that has been against me, 
many times such discretion has been a real blessing. 

. She has borne him a large family of children, two 
of whom — the eldest boys — are now preparing for college. 
Their home since their marriage has been in Hiram until 
three or four years ago, when they removed to Mentor, 
Lake County, where their residence now is. 



iXi S'J'ORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

Increasing Fame of the College President— His Election to the State Senate 
and What He Did. 

Tiic College President began to draw attention tliroiigh 
wider circles than those which he had been a center as a 
teacher, and his oratorical powers had brought him promi- 
nently hefore the public. As President of the institute, it 
was natural that he should secure a prominent position 
among educated men, and his reputation grew very rapidly 
until, in 1859, the people of his county thought him a 
proper man to represent them in the State Senate. He was 
elected by a large majority, and took an influential part in 
legislation and debate. 

It is generally supposed that General Garfield was once 
a clergyman. This is not strictly true; he frequently 
appeared in the pulpit of the Disciples Church, in accord- 
ance with the liberal usages of that denomination, but 
never entertained any idea of l>eeoming a minister, nor did 
he ever take holy oi'ders. Since his entrance into politics 
as a member of the Legislature lie has not performed any 
ministerial duties, but has turned his attention more to the 
practice of law. 

"Wniien the war broke out General Garfield was a leading 
member of the Ohio State Senate, and was the foremost of 
a small band of Eepublicans who tliought it impolitic to 
adopt the constitutional amendments which 'had been sent 
by Congress to the States forbidding forever legislation on 
the subject of slav^ery. He took the lead in revising an 
old statute about treason, and when what was known as the 
" million war bill " came up, he was the most conspicuous 
of its advocates. 




HOME LIFE. 38 

ijieodote of Garfield's Early Life— His Greatness Anticipated by a Woman in 
Connection with a Laughable Incident. 

A reminiscence of Gen. Gartieltrs earlier nianliood is 
found in the recital given by one Oapt. Stiles, the pres- 
ent Sheriff of Ashtabula county, Ohio. In 1850, Capt 
Stiles relates that Garlield taught the district school of 
Stiles' district, and " boarded around." Like many other 
school-masters of the pioneer days, Garfield's wardrobe ^s^as 
scanty, consisting of but one suit of jean. 

One day the school-master was so unfortunate as to rend 
his pantaloons across the knee in an unseemly degree. He 
pinned up the rend as best lie could, and went to the hom6> 
stead of the Stiles' where he was then boarding. Good 
Mrs. Stiles cheerfully said to the unfortunate pedagogue: 

"Oh, well, James, never mind; you go to bed early and 
I will put a nice patch under that tear, and darn it all up 
so nice that it will last all winter, and when you get to be 
United States Senator nobody will ask you what kind of 
clothes you wore when you were keeping school,'' 

Last winter when Gen. Garfield was elected Senator from 
the State of Ohio Mrs. Stiles, who is still a hale old lady, 
sent her congratulations to him and reminded him «f the 
torn pantaloons; and for her kindly congratulations she re- 
ceived a most touching reply from :ae newly-elected 
Senator, assuring her that the incident was fresh in hia 
memory. 



An Interesting Eeminiscence— Garfield and Arthur Both School Teachers in 
the Same Eoom at North Pownal, Vt. 

Korth Pownal, Bennington, Co., Vt., formerly known 
as Whipple's Corners, is situated in the southwestern 
corner of the State, and by the usually travelled road 
one passes in an hour's ride from New York through the 



34 STOUIE^ ^LND ^KETi-HE^^ OF GARFIELD. 

comer of Yerrnonl by way of North Pownal into the State 
of Massachusetts, 

In 1851 Chester A. Artliiir, fresh from Union Collesre, 
came to North Pownal, and for one snnnner tanght tlie 
village school. About two years later James A. Garfield, 
then a young stuilrnt at AVillianis College, several miles 
distant, in order to obtain the necessary means to defray 
his exj)ense.-. white pursuing his studies, came also to North 
pnwna! and established a writing-school in the room for- 
Uierly occupied by Mr. Arthur, and taught classes in pen- 
mansliip during the long winter evenings. 

Thus, fr.Mii a connnon starting-point in early life, after 
the lapse of more than a quarter of a century, after years 
of nninlv tc)il, these distinoniished m n nre brought into a 
close relationship before the nation and before the civilized 
world. 



A Pen Picture of Garfield. 

In person Gen. Ga,rfield is six feet high, broad-shouldered 
and strongly built. He has an unusually large head, that 
seems to be three-fourths forehead, light-brown hair and 
beard, large, light-blue eyes, a prominent nose, and full 
cheeks. He dresses plainly, is fond of broad-brimmed 
slouch hats and stout boots, eats heartily, cares nothing for 
luxurious living, is thoroughly temperate in all respects 
save in that of brain- work, and devoted to his wife and 
children and very fond of his country home. Among men 
he is genial, approachable, companionable, and a remarkably 
entertaining talker. 



* H02IE LIFE. :;.-, 

A Pen Picture of Gea. Garfleli's Wife A Model Woman. 

Mrs. Garlield is a ladv of inediuiu heii,dit. and of slight 
Imfc well-knit form. She has small features, with a some- 
wliat proiiiiueiit forehead, and her h!;u'k h:iir. crimped in 
front and done up in a modest coil, is sli-htly tinged witli 
^^ray. A ]);ur of black eyes, and a ]no:ith alxmt mIucIi 
tiie'.-e ]tla_vs a sweetly bewitching smile, are tiie most attrac- 
ti\e features of a thoroughly expressi\-e face, in dress she 
is (piite as plain as the ]n-esent mistress of the A\"hitc 
House, M'hom she resembles in several respects. Her man- 
nei-s are graceful and winning in the extreme. Though she 
is noted for her modest, retiring ways and her thoi-ouorh 
domesticity more than for any other distino-uishiiiir chay- 
iicteristic, her educational accomplishments are many and 
varied. In all the public life of her distinguished compan- 
ion she has been his constant helpmeet and adviser. Slic 
is a (piick observer, an intelligent listener, but undemon- 
.strative in the extreme. When the General was at Chick- 
<imagua, and everybody at Hiram was painfully anxious to 
get the latest news from the field of battle, she sat (juiet and 
jmtient in what is now Professor Hinsdale's cosy library^ 
and was able to control the inmost emotions that SM'ayed 
her breast. How she received the news of the Genei-al's 
nomination at Chicago m-IU probably never be fully known, 
but everybody here is sure that she was as undemonstrative 
as when waitii g lor news from Cliickama\igua. 




86 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

President Hinsdale's Stories and Tribute to Gen. Garfield, the Man Who was 

in Hiram College Before Him— The Canal and Wood-Chopping 

Incidents— How He Lladc Success Possible, and 

Why He Succeeded. 

President B. A, Hinsdale, of Hiram College, on the day 
of Garlield's election to the United States Senate, made the 
following announcement to the students in the chapel: 

" To-day a man will be elected to the United States 
Senate in Columbus wdio, when a boy, was once the bell- 
ringer ill this school and afterward its President. Feeling 
this, we ought, in some way, to recognize this step in his 
history. I will to-morrow morning call your attention to 
some of the more notable and worthy teatures of Gen. Gar- 
field's history and character." 

The address which President Hinsdale delivered on the 
occasion is as follows: 

Young Ladies and Gentlemen: I am not going to at- 
tempt a formal address on the life and character of Gen. 
Garfield. There is now no call for such an attempt, and I 
have made no adequate preparations for such a task. My 
object is far humbler: simply to hold up to your minds 
Bome points in his history, and some features in his char- 
acter that young men and women may study with interest 
and profit. 

I shall begin by destroying history, or what is commonly 
held to be history. The popularly accepted account of 
Gen. Garfield's history and character is largely fabulous. 
We are not to suppose that the ages of myth and legend 
are gone; under proper conditions such growths spring up 
now; and I know of no man in public life around whom 
they have sprung up more rankly than apund the subject 
of my remarks. 

No doubt you have seen some of the stories concerning 
him and his family that appear ever and anon in the news- 



HOME LIFE. 37 

papers; that liis mother chopped cordwood ; that she fought 
wolves with lire to keep them from devouring her children, 
her distinguished son being one of the group; that the cir- 
cumstances of the family were the most pinching; that 
Oarfield himself could not read at the age of 21; that he 
w%as peculiarly reckless in his early life; that, when he had 
"become a man, he went down from the pulpit to thrash a 
bully who interrupted liim in his sermon on the patience 
of Job. 

These stories, and others like them, are all false and all 
harmful. They fail of accomplishing the very purpose for 
which they were professedly tokl — the stimuhition of youth. 
To make the lives of the great distorted and monstrous is 
not to make them fruitful as lessons. 

If a life be anomalous and outlandish, it is, for that 
reason, the poorer example. It is all in the wrong direc- 
tion. It makes the impression that, in human history, 
there is no cause and no eflect; no antecedent and no con- 
sequent; that everything is capricious and Htful; and sug- 
gests that the best thing to do is to abandon one's self to 
the currents of life, trusting that some beneficent gulf 
stream will seize you and bear you to some happy shore. 
Ko, young people, do not heed such instruction as this. 

The best lives for them to study are those that are natural 
and symmetrical; those in which the relation between cause 
and effect is so close and apparent that the dullest can see 
it; and that preach in the plainest terms the sermon on the 
text: " AVhatever a man soweth that shall he al.>-o reap." 

Irregular and abnormal lives will do for "studies," but 
jiealthy, normal, harmonious lives should be chosen for 
example. And Gen. Garfield's lite from the first has l^een 
eminently healthy, ngrmal, and well-proportioned. 

He was born in the woods of Orange, Cuyahoga County, 
in 1831. His father died when the son was a year and a 



38 STORIES AND .SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

half old. Ahrani Garfield's circumstances Avere those of 
his neighbors. Measured by our staiulai-d they were all 
poor; they lived on small farms, for M-liich they, had gone 
in debt, hoping to clear and pay for them by their toil. 
Gai-field dying, left his wife and four young childivn in the 
condition that any one of his neighlxu-s M-ould have done 
in like circumstances — poor. The family life before had 
been close and hard enough; now it became closer and. 
harder. 

(Trandma (rarfield, as some of us familiarly call her, was 
a woman of unusual energy, faith, and courage. She said 
the children should not be separated, but kept them 
together; and that the home sliould be maintained, as 
when its head was living. The battle Ava^ a hard one, and 
she won it. AH honor to her, but let us not make her 
ridiculous by in\'enting impossible stories. 

To external appearance, young (rai-field's life did not 
differ nuiterially from the lives of the neighbors' boys. 

He chopped M'ood, and so did they; he mowed, and so 
did they; he carried butter to the store iii ;*. little pail, and 
so did they. Other families that h;;d not lo>t tlu'ir heads 
naturally shot ahead of the Gartieids iu property; but 
such diti'erences counted far less then than they do now. 
The traits of his maturer character a[>pe:n-e<l early; studi- 
ousness, truthfulness, generosity of natui-e, an<l mental 
1)Ower., So far was he from being I'cckless, that he was 
almost serious, reverent and thoughtful. So far Mas he 
from being unable to read at 21 that he Mas a teachei' 
in the district schools before he Avas 1.^. 

He was the farthest removed from being a pugilist, 
though he had gri?at physical strengrh and courage, cool- 
ness of mind, was left-handed witlnd, and was both ablt? 
and dis])osed to defend himself and all his rights, and did 
so on due occasion. 



HOME LIFE. - ;;r> 

His three months' service on tlie canal has been the 
source of numerous fables and morals. The morals are hs 
false as the fables, and more misleading. All I have to 
say about it is: James A. Garfield lias not risen to the 
position of a United States Senator because he " I'aii on a 
canal." Nor is it because he chopped more vrood tlum tlie 
neii!;ld3ors' boys. Many a man has run longer on the canai, 
and chopped more wood, and never became a Senator. 

Gen. Garfield once rang the school bell when a student, 
here. That did not make him the man he is. (\jnvince 
UxC that it did, and I will hang u]) a ,bell in every tree in 
the campus, and set you all to ringing. Thonuis Corwin, 
when a boy, drove a wagon, and became the head of the 
Treasury; Thomas Ewing boiled salt, and became a 
Senator; Henry Clay rode a liorse to mill from the 
"Slashes," and he became the great commoner of ihe 
West. But it was not the wagon, tlie salt, aud horse that 
made these men great. 

These are interestino- facts in the lives o\' iliese illus- 
triousmen; they show that, in our country, it has been, 
and still is possible for young men of ability, energy, and 
determined purpose to rise above a lowly con<lition. and 
win places of usefulness and honor. Poverty may be a 
good school; straightened circumstances may <levelap 
])0wer and character; but the ]>rinrii)al conditions oi" 
success ai-e in the man, and not in his surroundings. 

(Tarfield is the man he is because nature gave liim a 
noble endowment of faculties that he has nobly handled. 
We must look within, and lutt without, i'nv the secret of 
destiny. The thing to look at in a, man's life are his 
aspirations, his energy, liis ctjurage, his ^trength of will, 
and iiot the wood he may have cho]>ped, or the salt he nuiy 
have boiled. How a man works, and not what he does, la 
the test of worth. 



40 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

His success did not lie in liis technical scholarship, or liis 
ability as a drill-master. Teachers are jjlenty who much 
surpass him in these particulars. He had great ability to 
grasp a subject; to organize a body of intellectual materials; 
to amass facts and work out striking g-eneralizations; and, 
therefore, he excelled in rhetorical exposition. An old 
pupil who has often heard him on the stump, once told me, 
" the General succeeds best when talking to the people just 
as he did to his class." He imparted to his pupils large- 
ness of view, enthusiasm, and culled out of them unbounded 
devotion to himself. 

This devotion was not owing to any plan or trick, but to 
the qualities of the man. Mr. H. M. James of the Cleve- 
land schools, an old Hii-am scholar, speaking of the old 
Hiram days bel'ore Garfield went to college, once wrote me: 
"There began to grow up in me an admiration and love for 
Garfield that has never abated, and the like of which I have 
■never knc>wn. A bow of recognition, or a simple word 
from him, was to me an inspiration." 

Probably all were not equally susceptible, but all the boys 
who were long under his charge (save, perhaps, a few 
^' sticks ") would speak in the same strain. He had great 
power to energize young men. Gen. Garfield has carried 
the same qualities into public life. He has commanded 
success, H''' oi>ili"f-«r l-rowledge, mastery of questions, 
generosity of nature, devotion to the public good, and 
honesty of purpose, have done the woi'k. He has never had 
a political "machine." lie has never forgotten the lay 
of small things. He has never made personal enemies. 

It is difficult to see how a political triumph could be 
more complete or more gratifying than his election to the 
Senate, No " bargains " no " slate," no " grocerj- " at 
Columbus, He did not even go to the Capital City, Such 
things are inspiring to those who think politics in a broad 



HOME LIFE. 41 

way. He is a man of positive convictions, freely uttered. 
Politically he may be called a " man-of-war; " and yet few 
men, or none, begrudge him his triumph. Democrats vied 
with Republicans the other day in Washington in snowing 
him under with congratulations; some of them were as 
anxious for his election as any liepublican could be. 

It is is said he will go to the Senate without an enemy 
on either side of the chamber. These things are honorable 
to all parties. They show that manhood is more than 
party. The Senator is honored, Ohio is honored, and so 
is the school in Hiram, with which he was connected so 
many years. The whole story abounds in interest, and I 
hope I have so told it as to bring out some of its best 
points, and to give you stimulus and cheer. 



An Interesting Story in Connection with the Sick room— General Garfield as 

a Beader. 

The methods of study which Gen. Garfield adopted in 
early life have never been abandoned. There are few public 
men who have any spare time for books; Gen. Garfield is 
one of the few. He always reads. 

He believes in the principle that change is rest, and, to 
relieve himself from the tedium of CJongressional business, 
he resorts to literature. It is said that nearly all great 
orators have been fine talkers. 

Gen. Garfield is a remarkable conversationalist. His pri- 
vate talk, when the harness of politics has been laid aside, 
is brilliant and fascinating. He seems never to forget any- 
thing; and in quiet moments, when friends are by him, it is 
pleasant to hear him tell of the old days, and to dream of 
the future. 

He IS so full of pleasant anecdote 
So rich, so gay, so poignant is his wit- 
Time vanishes before him as he speaks. 
And ruddy morning through the lattice peeps 
Ere night seems well begun. 



42 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD 

Some years ago Gen. Gartield .suffered from a tem|)orarj 
disorder, and was compelled to submit to a paintul suroical 
operation. lie lay here tor six weeks in tins tropical sun, 
recovering from the effects ot that '^>peration. The town 
was dead. It was \acatiou time. Xot one member of 
either House was here. On one i>f these burning days a 
friend had occasion to call upon iiim. Everything was 
quiet and peaceful within. 

"I have been reading," said Gen. Gartield, from his sick- 
bed, ''cliarming, silly old Bozzy's journey to the Ilebri'les, 
over again. He is always the same kindly, lazy, genial, old 
man, forever saying good things — -a sleek, soft-handed, soft- 
hearted giant of a fellow.'' 

"I have read,'- he said, turning to his visitor, "since I 
have been lying here, stiaia-gling with this ])ain, eighteen, 
volumes; and 1 have indexed and commonplact<l them all. 
Pretty fair work, 1 take it, tor six weeks of mitUuminer in 
Washington. 

The sick-room bore witness to this couNalesceiit iiulusti-y. 

The narrative of Bozzy's j()urney lay beside him, and an 
immense atlas, supported by an eltxated stand, stood near 
the bed, o])ened at the nnij) which showed the conrse of 
Bozzy in the journey to tiie Hebrides. A faithful wife 
was tracing with a pencil the ins and outs which the genial 
old philosopher took on his way to these' Northern islands. 
It was in this way that GarJield was turning to profit the 
leisure that tlie suro-eon's knife had <rivcn him. 



Garfield at Home- His Residence at Mentor -His Family anU Kis Mother. 

Gen. Garfield is the possessor of two homes, and his 
family migrates twice a year. Some ten years ago, finding 
how unsatisfactory lite was in hotels and boarding-houses, 



HOME LIFE. 43 

lie bought a lot of ground on the corner of Thirteenth and 
I streets, in Washington, D. C, and, with money borrowed 
of a friend, built a plain, substantial three-story house. A 
wing was extended afterwai-d to make room for the fast- 
growing library. The money was repaid in time, and was 
proba])lr saved in great pail from what would otherwise 
have gone to landlords. The children grew up in pleasant 
home surroundings, and the house became a center of much 
simple and ordial huspitrJity. 

Five or six years ago the little cottage at Hiram was 
sokl, and for a time the only residence the Garliclds -had in 
liis (listi'ict was a summer-house he built on Little Mount- 
ain, a bold elevation in Lake County, which commands a 
view ot thirty miles of rich farming country stretched along 
the sho]-e of Lake Erie. 

Three years iigo he bought a farm in Mentor, in the same 
county, lying on both sides of the Lake Shore and ^liciii- 
g m Southern Railroad. Here his family spend all the time 
when he is free from his duties in Washington. 

TIk' farm-house is a low, old-fash icmed, story-and-a-half 
building, but its limited accommodations have been sup- 
]>lemented by numerous outbuildings, one of wln'ch (ren. 
Gariield uses for office and library purposes. 

The farm contains about 160 acres of excellent land, in a 
high st^te^of cultivation, and the Congressman finds a recre- 
ation, of which he never tires, in directing the held work 
and making improvements in the buildings, fences, and 
or.'hards. Cleveland is only twenty-iive miles aw^ay; tliere 
is a postoffice and a railway station within half a mile, and 
the pretty country town of Painesville is but five iniles 
distant. One of the pleasures of summer life on the (rar- 
held farm is a drive of two miles through the woods to the 
lake shore and a bath in the breakers. 

Gen. Garfield has live children liviuij. an<l hi!> lost two, ' 



44" STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

who died in infancy. The two older boys. Harry and 
James, are now at school in New Hampshire. Mary, or 
Molly as everybody calls her, is a handsome, rosy-cheeked 
girl of abont 12. The two younger boys are named Irwin 
and Abram. 

The General's mother is still living, and has long been a 
member of his lamily. She is an intelligent, energetic old 
lady, with a clear head and a strong will, who keeps well 
posted in the news of the day, and is very proud of her 
son's career, though more liberal of criticism than of 
praise. 



GeiL Garfield's First Important Speech After His Nomination — It is DtliT- 

ered to the Students of Hiram College on " Commencement Day "— 

An Interesting Address. 

Gen. Garfield returned home from his nomination in 
Chicago to be present "Commencement Day" at little 
Hiram, where he had once been professor, and afterwards 
president of the institution. Here Garfield met his wife 
for the first time since his nomination, and that, too, at the 
very house where their acquaintance began, within a stone's 
throw ot the college. To the students and his college 
friends there assembled he spoke most grandly. After a 
brief reference to old associations, he added the following 
evidently impromptu remarks: 

"Fellow Citizens, Old Neighbors, and Friends of 
Many Years: It has always given me- pleasure to come 
back here and look upon these faces." It has always given 
me new courage and new friends, for it has brought back a 
large share of that richness which belongs to those things 
out of which come the joys of life. 

"While sitting here this afternoon, watching your taces 



HOME LIFE. 41 

and listening to the very interesting address which has just 
been delivered, it has occurred to me that the least thing 
you have, that all men have enough of, is perhaps the thing 
that you care for the least, and that is your leisure — the 
leisure you have to think; the leisure you have to be let 
alone; the leisure you have to throw the plummet into your 
mind, and sound the depth and dive for things below; the 
leisure yoli have to walk about the towers yourself, and find 
how strong they are or how weak they are, to determine 
what needs building up; how to work, and how to know all 
that shall make you the final beings you are to be. Oh, 
these hours of building! 

" If the Superior Being of the universe would look down 
upon the world to find the most interesting object, it would 
be the unfinished, unformed character of the young man or 
young woman. Those behind me have probably in the 
main settled this question. Those who hav^e passed into 
middle manhood and middle womanhood are about what we 
shall always be, and there is but little left of interest, as 
their characters are all developed. 

" But to your young and your yet unformed natures, no 
man knows the possibilities that lie before you in your 
hearts and intellects; and, while you are working out the 
possibilities with that splendid leisure that you need, you 
ai'e to be most envied. I congratulate you on your leisure. 
I commend you to treat it as your gold, as your M'ealth, as 
your treasure, out of which you can draw all possible treas- 
ures that can be laid down when you have your natures 
unfolded and developed in the possibilities of the future. 

" This place is too full of memories for me to trust my- 
self to speak upon, and I will not. But I draw again to- 
day, as I have tor a quarter of a century, life, evidence ot 
strength, confidence, and affection from the people who 
gather in this place. I thank you for the permission to see 
you and meet you and greet you as I have done to-day." 



46 STORIIiS AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

Garfield "Photographed" by "Gath"— A Remarkably Interesting Pen- 
Picture of the Great Man— His Physical, Social, Moral, 
and Intellectual Powers. 

The following exceedingly interesting description of Gen. 
Garfield was "written by the celebrated "Gath" soon after 
Gariield's nomination as President: ^ 

The -writer has . known Gen. Garfield pretty well for 
thirteen years*. He is a large, well-fed, hale, rnddy, brown- 
bearded man, weighing about 220 pounds, with Ohio Ger- 
man colors, blue eyes, military face, erect figure and shoul- 
ders, large back and thighs, and broad chest, and e\i(lently 
bred in the country on a farm. His large mouth is full of 
strong teeth, his nose, chin, and brows are strongly pro- 
nounced. A large brain, with room for play of thought 
and long application, rises high above his clear, discerning, 
enjoying eyes. He sometimes suggests a country Samson, — 
strong beyond his knowdedge, but unguarded as a school- 
boy. 

He pays little attention to the affectation by whieli some 
men manage public opinion, and has one kind of Ijchavior 
for all callers, which is the most natural behavior at hand. 
Strangers would think him a little cold, and mentailv shv. 
On acquaintance he is seen to be hearty above every tiling, 
loving the life around him, his family, his friends, his State 
and country. Loving sympathetic and achieving ])'.'ople, 
and with a large unprofessing sense of the brotherhood of 
workers in the fields of progress, it was the feeling of syni- 
jDathy and the desire to impart which took him for chief; 
while as to the pul])it, or on the verge of it, fidl of all that 
he saw and acquired, he panted to give it forth, after it had 
passed through the alembic of his mind. 

Endowed with a warm temperament, copious expression, 
large, wide-seeing faculties, and superabundant health, he 
could study all night and tejich or lecture all day, and it 



HOME LIFE. 47 

Avas a providence that liis neigliljors discovered lie was too 
TTnicli of a man to cor.ceal in tlie pnlpit, wliere his docility 
and reverence had almost taken him. They sent him to the 
State Legislature, where he was when the Avar broke out, 
and he immediately went to the iiekl, where his courage 
and painstaking partij, and Im-e of open air occupation, and 
perfect iVeedom from self-assertion, made liini the delight 
of Rosecrans and George II. Thomas successively. He 
would go about any w^)rk they asked of him, was unselfish 
and enthusiastic, and had steady, temperate habits, aiid his 
lar^e brain and his reverence made evervthinn: novel to him. 

There is an entii'e absence of non-balance or worldliness 
in his nature. He is never indifferent, never vindictive. 
A base action or ingratitude or cruelty may make him sad, 
but does not provoke retaliation, nor alter tliat faith in men 
or Providence which is a part of his sound stomach and 
athletic head. Garfield is simple as a child; to the ser- 
pent's wisdom he is a stranger. Having no use nor apti- 
tude with the weapons of coarser natures, he often avoids 
mere disputes, does not go to public resorts where men are 
familiar or vulgar, and the walk from his home in Wash- 
ington to the Capitol, and an occasional dinner out, com- 
prise his life. 

The word public servant especially applies to him. He 
has been the drudge of his State constituents, the public, 
the public societies, the moral societies, and of his party 
and country since 1863. Aptitude for public debate and 
public affairs are associated with a military nature in him. 
He is on a broad scale a schoolmaster of the range of Glad- 
stone, of Agassiz, of Gallatin. With as lion-'st a heart as 
ever beat above the competitors of sordid ainl)ition. Gen. 
Garfield has yet so little of the worldly wise in him that 
he is poor, and yet has l)ecn accused of dishones.ty. 

He has no capacity for investment, nor the rapid solution 



48 i^TORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD, 

ot wealth, iior profound respect for the penny in and out 
of pound, and still is neither careless, improvident, nor 
dependent. The great consuming passion to ecpial richer 
people, and live finely, and extend his social power is as 
foreign to him as scheming or cheating. But he is not a 
suspicious nor a high mettled man, and so he is taken in 
sometimes, partly from his obliging, unrefusing disposition. 
Men who were scheming imposed upon him as upon Grant, 
and other men. The people of his district, who are quick 
to punish public venality or defection, heard him in his 
defense in 1873 and kept him in Congress and held up his 
hand, and hence he is by their unwavering support for 
twenty -five years candidate for President and a National 
character. 

Since John Qiiincy Adams no President has had Gar- 
field's scholarship, which is equally up to this age of wider 
'facts. The average American, pursuing money all day 
long, is now presented to a man who had inv^ariably put the 
business of others above his own, and worked for that 
alleged nondescript — the public — gratitude all his life. But 
he has not labored without reward. The great nomination 
came to-day to as pure and loving a man as ever wished well 
of anybody and put his shoulder to his neighbor's wheel. 

Garfield's big, boyish lieart is pained to-night with the 
weight of his o])ligation, affection, and responsibility. To- 
day, as hundreds of telegrams came from everywhere, say 
ing kind, strong things to him — such messages as only 
Americans in their rapid, good impulses pour upon a lucky 
friend — he was with two volunteer clerks in a room open- 
ing and reading, and suddenly his two boys sent him one — - 
little fellows at school — and as he read it he broke down, 
and tried to talk, but his voice choked, and he could not see 
for tears. Tlie clerks began to blubbei", too, and people to 
whom they afterward told it. '' 



HOME lAFE. 49 

This sense of real great heart will be new to the conntry, 
and will grow if he gets the Presidency. His wife was one 
of his scholars in Ohio. Like him, she is of a New England 
family, transplanted to the West, a pure-hearted, brave, nn- 
assuming woman; the mother of seven or eight children, 
and, as he told me only a few weeks ago, had never, by any 
remark, brought him into the least trouble, while she \\-;i.s 
unstampedable by any clamor. 

He is the ablest public speaker in tlie country, and the 
most serious and instructive man on the stump. His iiv 
stincts, liberal and right; his courtesy, noticeable in our 
politics; his aims, ingenuous; and his piety comes by na- 
ture. He leads a farmer's life, all the recess of Congress 
working like a field-hand, and restoring his mind by resting 
it. If elected, he will give a tone of culture and intelligencf? 
to the Executive office it has never yet had, while he has n.i 
pedantry in his composition, and no conceit whatever. 

Gen. Gartield may he worth $25,000, or a little more than 
Mr. Lincoln was when he took the office. His old mother, 
a genial lady, lives in his family, and his kindness to heron 
every occasion bears out the commandment of " Honor tliy 
father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the 
land." 



A Splendid Eecord-Summary of Garfield's Labors-The Rewards of Industry. 

It is astonishing how much there is in the story of Gen. 
Garfield's life to excite the sympathy, appeal to the pride, 
and call out the commendation of young men and old men 
who believe in the dignity of American citizenship. 

In 1840, an orphan boy struggling along the prosaic dead 
level ot life on a farm; in 1847, working steadily under the 
hardships and drudgery of a canal-boatman's experience; in 
1849, an aspiring student, supporting himselt at an acad- 

4z 



50 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

emj; in 1850, a teacher in a country pcliool, earning money 
to foi-ward his ambition to become an educated man; in 
1854, a stubborn student at college; in 1858, a young man 
struggling against the debts incurred in educating himfeelf; 
in 1859, President of an educational institute and a State 
Senator; in 1800, influential as a man and prominent as a 
politician; in 1861, the Colonel of a Union regiment, and 
the commander of a brigade, driving forward with reaistlesa 
energy into Eastern Kentucky; in 1862, a Brigadier Gen- 
eral, and then a Major General; in 1863, occupying G id- 
dings' seat in Congress; re-elected in 1864, 1866, 1868, 
1870, 1872, 1874, 1876, and 1878, and for nearly all the 
time an acknowledged leader; elected United States Sen- 
ator in January, 1880, and nominated President in June. 

This is the ideal career of the ambitious or aspiring 
American boy. Here is a man who, beginniug life as a 
poor boy, has in truth fought his way to distinction. Pure 
and courageous as a boy, ambitious and self-reliant a.*? a 
young man, tireless and brave as a soldier, aggressive but 
even-tempered as a leader in Congress, Gen. Garfield has 
retained every friendship of his youth, held fast to every 
comrade of his soldier experience, and commanded the 
respect of all his co-laborers in Congress, 

Gai'field's life is the story of a young man who has suc- 
ceeded through his own efforts. Having passed through 
all the trials common to boys and young men in this coun- 
try, he has achieved the distinction which we teach, as a 
part of our American system, all our boys to strive for. 
He is from the people and of the people, a pure, kind- 
hearted, tolerant, broad-spirited, and distinguished man. 

Such a life record is a source of pride to any man who 
thoroughly believes in the possibilities of the American 
system of education and government. It must be an ele- 
ment of strength to the Presidential candidate of any party, 



HOME LIFE.^ r,l 

and, judo-ed by this record, by his lulent, experience, and 
spirit, Garfield should be a strong candidate for tlie Repub- 
lican party. 

It is a good sign when those who know a man best like 
him best. It is a good sign when those who have been 
most intimately associated with a man arise pi'omptly and 
voluntarily to testily in his behalf. It is a good sign when 
men are attracted to another man because he is a man of 
heart and principle. 





HIRAM COLLEGE. 



AA^AR RECORD. 



Crarfield in War— How He Voluntered to put down the Rebellion, and was 
Promoted— Interesting Incidents on the Field of Battle. 

Troops were being raised in Ohio early in 1861, and 
Gen. Garfield at once notified Governor Dennison of his 
■desire to enter the service. Garfield was sent to New 
York by Governor Dennison to secure arms for the 
equipment of the Ohio troops, and upon his return was 
offered a Lieutenant-Colonelcy in a proposed regiment, 
M^hich was never organized. 

In August, 1861, however, after McClellan's West 
Virginia campaign, Gen. Garfield was appointed Lieutenant 
Colonel of the Forty-Second Ohio Kegiment, for which had 
been recruited many of his old pupils at the Hiram 
Institute. Gen. Garfield went diligently at work studying 
tactics, and after five weeks of camp life was promoted to 
the Colonelcy of his regiment, and started for the field. 

The regiment went first to Kentucky, where it reported 
to Gen. Buell, and Garfield was at once assigned the 
command of the Seventeenth Brigade, and ordered to drive 
the rebel forces, under Humphrey Marshall, ont of Eastern 
Kentucky. Up to that date no active operations had been 
attempted west of the Blue Eidge Mountains, and Gen. 
Garfield found himself in command of tbur regiments of 
infantry and eight companies of cavalry, charged Avith the 

53 



54 STORIES -AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

important work of driving out of liis native State an officer 
reported to be the ablest that Kentucky had given to the 
rebellion. 

Gen. Garfield had never seen a gun fired in action, and 
had no knowledge of military service except what had been 
gained in a few months' experience. Garfield moved 
rapidly up the valley, with a force numbering only 2,200, 
to meet an experienced officer with 5,000 well-equipped 
men; but Marshall retreated before him, and after a slight 
skirmish, Garfield found himself in possession of the 
enemy's camp and baggage. He pushed the pursuit, and 
■was reinforced by about 1,000 men. The fight that 
followed was severe at times, but on the whole desultory, 
and continued three days, until the troops had become 
practically disabled, because of a heavy rainstorm that 
flooded the mountain gorges, and made so strong a current 
in the rivers that Garfield's supplies were unable to reach 
him. 

The troops were almost out of rations, and the mountain- 
ous country was incapable of supporting them. Garfield 
went by land to tlie base of his supplies, and ordered a 
steamer to take on a cargo and move up to tlie relief of his 
troops. The Captain declared^ it was impossible; finally, 
Garfield ordered the Captain and his crew on board, 
stationed sentinels in the pilot-house, and, having gained a 
load, started up stream. The water in the usually shallow 
river was sixty feet deep, and the tree tops along the banks 
were submerged. 

The little vessel trembled from stem to stern at every 
motion of the engines; the waters whirled her about as 
if she were a skiff, and the utmost speed that steam could 
give her was three miles an hour. When night fell, the 
Captain of the boat begged ])crmission to tie up. To 
attempt ascending the flood in the dark he declared was 



WA 11 RECORD. 55 

ma(liit>.>. But Col. CiiirtiJd kt] I liis place at the wlieel. 
Finally, m one of the f-uddtMi It ids of the river, they drove, 
with a full head of steam, iiito ll.e bank. Every effort to 
back her off was in vain. -Mattocks were procured, and 
excavations wei'e made ai'ound the imbedded bow. Still 
she .^tuc.k. Garfield at last ordered a boat to be lowered to 
take a line across to the op]josite bank. The crew protested 
against venturing out in the flood. The Colonel leaped 
into the boat and steered it over. A windlass of rails was 
hastily made, and with a long line the vessel was wai*ped 
off, and once more was afloat. 

It was Saturday when tliey left Sandy Creek. All 
through that day and night, Sunday and Sunday night, the 
boat pushed hei- way against the current, Garfleld leaving 
the wheel but eight hours of the whole time. At nine 
o'clock Monday they reachetl camp, and Garfleld could 
scarcely escape being borne to headquarters on the 
shoulders of the men. 

During the months of January, February arid March 
there were numerous encounters with mountain guerrillas, 
but the Union arms finally prevailed, and the bands <jf 
maraiulers were driven from the State. 

Ju--t on the l)o]'dei-, hoAvever, at the rough pass across the 
mountains known as Pound Gap, Humphrey Marshall still 
held a post of observation, with a force of about 5 00 men. 
On the 14th of March, Gai-fleld started with 500 infantry 
and a couple of hundred cavalry against this detachment. 
The distance was forty miles. The roads w^ere at their 
worst, but by evening of the next day he had reached the 
mountain two miles north of the gap. 

Next morning the c:ivalry were deployed up tlie gap 

road, while th.e infantry were led along an unfrequented 

K path on the side of the mountain. A heavy snowstorm 

~ also helped to mask the movement. While the enemy 



m STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

were watching the cavalry, Garfield had led the infantry to 
within a quarter of a mile of their camp. Then an attack 
was ordered, the enemy taken by surprise, and a few volleys 
sent them in confusion down the side of the mountain into 
Virginia. Considerable quantities of stores were captured. 

That night the victorious troops rested in the comfortable 
log huts built by the enemy, and the next morning burned 
them down. Six days afterward, the command was ordered 
to Louisville. These operations had been conducted with 
such energy and skill as to receive the special commenda- 
tion of tlie Government, and Col. Garfield was given a 
commission as Brigadier General. The discomfiture of 
Humphrey Marshall was a source ot special chagrin to the 
rebel sympathizers of Kentucky, and Garfield took rank in 
the popular estimation among the most promising of the 
volunteer Generals. 

On his return to Louisville after the campaign, he found 
the army of the Ohio already beyond Nashville, on it's 
way to Gen. Grant's aid at Pittsburg Landing. He 
hastened after it, and assumed command of the Twentieth 
Brigade. He reached the field on Pittsburg Landing 
about one o'clock on the second day of the battle, and 
participated in the closing scenes. 

When Gen. Buell sought to prepare a new campaign, he 
assigned Gen. Garfield to the task of rebuilding the bridges 
and railroad from Corinth to Decatur. After })erf()rmirig 
the duty with great skill and energy, he found himself 
reduced by fever and ague, which he had contracted in the 
days of his tow-path service on the Ohio Canal, and went 
home on sick leave. 

Soon after he received orders to proceed to Cumberland 
Gap and relieve Gen. George W. Morgan of his command ; 
but he was too ill to leave his bed, and another officer was 
sent to tlie service. • 



WAR RECORD. ■ 57 

As soon as his liealtli would pennir, he was ordered to 
Wasliin<?ton. where he was phiced upon court-martial lor 
the noted trial of Fitz Jolm Porter. 

Gen. Garfield was one of the clearest and foremost in the 
conviction of Porter's guilt, and liad tlie bill to restore 
Porter ever been brought up in the House of Representa- 
tives, he would have made a determined opposition to its 
passage ; but Gen. Logan finished the shameful scheme in 
the Senate, and Gen. Garfield never had an opportunity to 
deli'ver a speech which he had prepared with great 
thoroughness and care. 

After the trial of Fitz John' Porter, he was appointed 
Chief of Start' to Gen. Rosecrans, and from the day of his 
appointment became the intimate associate and confidential 
adviser of his chief. Garfield's influence had become so 
im])ortant in shaping campaigns that he was always con- 
sulted, and during the successful campaigns that followed 
Chickamauga he took an active part. 

Gen. Garfield's military career did not subject him to 
.trials of a large scale. He approved himself a good inde- 
pendent commander in the small operations in Sandy 
Valley. His campaign there opened our series of successes 
in the West. 

As a Chief of Staff he was unrivalled. There, as else- 
where, he was ready to accept the gravest responsibilities 
in following his convictions. The bent of his mind was 
judicial, and his judgment of military matters good. 

His record will stand for him a monument of courage, 
and his conduct at Chickamauga will never be forgotten by 
a nation of,brave men. 




'->S ,S7VUTES AXD SK/rirf/KS OF GARFIELD. 

Col. Garfield's First Great Battle He Defeats Humphrey Marshall and Win* 
a Brigadier-Generalship. 

On tlie 17 til of December, 1861, Garfield left Camp 
Chase, Ohio, with his i-egiuient (Forty-second Ohio) under 
orders for the Big Sandy Valley region in Eastern Ken- 
tucky. Upon arriving in Louisville he was invited by Gen. 
Buell to arrange his own campaign, and he accordingly pre- 
pared a plan, which was submitted to and approved by the 
commanding General. The ne.xt day he started for hi» 
field of operations with a command consisting of four 
regiments of infantry and about two hundred cavalry. 

The Big Sandy was reached and followed up for some 
sixty miles through a rough, mountainous Kegion, his force 
driving the outposts of Gen. Humphrey Marshall before 
them for a considerable distance. 

On the 7th of January, 1862, he drove the enemy's cav- 
alry from Paintsville, after a severe skirmish, killing and 
Vvuunding twenty-five of them. At a sti'ong point, three 
miles above Paintsville, Marshall had prepared to make a. 
stand, with 4,500 infantry, 700 cavalry, and two batteries, 
ot six guns each: but, his cavalry being driven in, his 
cournge failed, and he hastily evacuated his works and 
retreated up the river. 

The rapid marching thus far had much exhausted Gen. 
Garfield's forces; still, he resolved to pursue, and, selecting 
1,100 of his best troo])s, he continued on to Prestonburg, 
a distance of fifteen miles. There he found the Rebel* 
strongly j)Osted on the crest of a hill, at once attacked 
them, nnd maintained the battle during five hours, the, 
enemy's cannon meanwhile playing briskly. 

Although most of Garfield's troops were now under fire 
for the first time, their daring valor swept all before them. 
The Ilebels were driven from every position, and, after de- 



WAR RECORD. ^^ 

stroying their stores, ^vagons, aud e^iuip eqmpage, thoj 
retreated in disorder to Pound Gap, in the Cumberknd 
Mountains. This was the lirst brilliant aclnevement ot the 
War in the West, and a most complete and humiliating 
defeat to the Rebels, their loss in killed and wounded 
amounting to two hundred and Hfty, in addition to lorty 
taken prisoners, while the Union loss was but thirty-two, 

'' luV said that at the time of this battle, Gen. Garfield 
had in his possession a letter written a short tinie betore 
by Humphrey Marshall to his wife, but intercepted by Gen 
Buell and sent to Gen. Garfield, in which Marshall stated 
that he had five thousand eifective men in his command. 
This letter General Garfield refrained from showing to his 
officers and men until after the battle. His commission a^ 
Brigadier dated from the battle of Prestonburg. 

Full details of Garfield's Pound-Gap Expeditioa Strategy and Victory-Battle 
of Pittsburg Landing, Etc. 

\bout the middle of IMarch he made his famous Pound- 
(iap expedition, for a proper miderstanding of which a few 
words descriptive of the locality will be necessary. Pound- 
Gap is a zig-zag opening through the Cumbei^and Moun- 
tains into Virginia, leading into a tract of fertile meadow- 
land Iving between the base of the mountains and a stream 
called'Pound Fork, which bends around the opening ot he 
gap, at some little distance from it, forming what is c^xl ed 
"the Pound " These names originated in this wise: Lliis 
niountain locality was lor a long time the home of certain 
predatory Indians, from which they would make period cal 
forays into Virginia for plunder, and to jl^ich hey would 
retreat as rapidly as they came, carrying with- them J e 
stolen cattle, which they would ,.astnre ui the meadow-land 



60 STORIES AND SKETCHEiS OF O'ARFJE^I). 

just mentioned. Hence, umong the settlers it became 
knowii as " The Pound," and from it the gap and stream 
took their names. After his defeat at Preston burg, as has 
been stated, Humphrey Marshall retreated with his 
scattered forces through the gap into Virginia. A force of 
500 rebels was left to guard the pass against any sudden 
incursion of Gen. Garfield's force, who, to make assurance 
doubly sure, had built directly across the gap a formidal)le 
Ireastwork, completely blocking up the way, and behind 
wiiich 500 men could resist the attack of as many thousand. 
Behind these works, . and on the southwestern slope of the 
mountains, they had erected commodious cabins for winter 
quarters, where they spent their time in ease and co.nfort, 
occasionally— by v.;iy of variety, and in imitation of their 
Indian predecessors—descending from their stronghold 
into Kentucky, greatly to the damage of the stock-yards 
and ]'"''lefs of the well-to-do farmers of that vicinity, and to 
the 1 ; lit of their wives and children. 

Gen. Garfield determined to dislodge them from their 
position, and so ]>ut an end to their maurauding expe- 
ditions. He accordingly set out with a sufficient force, and 
after two days' forced march reached the base of the 
mountains a short distance above the gap. Of the strength 
of the rebels and their position he had been well informed 
by the spies lie had sent out, who iiad penetrated t(j their 
very camp in the absence of the usual pickets, which were 
never thrown out by them, so secui-e did they feel in their 
inountain fortress. It would have been madness to enter 
the gap and attack them in front, and the General did not 
propose or attempt it. Halting at the foot of the mountains 
f)r the night, he sent his cavalry early the next morning to 
the mouth of the gap to menace the rebels and draw them 
from behind their defences. This they did. aniving ui a 
given time and threatening an attack. The rcl t'l> jum)->«d 



WAR RECORD. 61 

at tl e bait and at once came out to meet them, our men 
rapi^llj retreating, and the rebels following until the latter 
were some distance in front of their breastworks instead 
of behind them. Meantime, Gen. Garfield, with his 
infantry, had scaled the mountain-side, in the tace ot ? 
blinding snow-storm, and, marching along a narrow ridge 
on the summit, had reached the enemy's camp in the rear 
of his fortifications. A vigorous attack was now made, 
resulting in the complete route ol the rebels, many of 
whom were killed, wounded, or taken prisoners, and the 
remainder dispersed through the mountains. The General 
no'^v reassembled his forces, and spen a comfortable night 
in the enemy's quarters, faring sumptuously on the viands 
there found. ' The next morning the cal)ins, sixty in 
number, were burned, the breastworks destroyed, and the 
General set out on his return to Piketon, which he reached 
the following night, having been absent four days, and 
having marched in that time about one hundred miles over 
a broken country. On his return he received orders from 
Gen. Buell, at Xashville, to report to liim in person. 
Arriving at that j^lace, he found that Euell had already 
begun his march towards Pittsl)urg Landing, and pushed 
on after him. 

Overtaking the army, he was placed in command of the 
Twelfth Brigade, and, with his command, })articipated in 
the second day's fight at Shiloh. lie was present through 
all the operations in front of Corinth, and, after the evacua- 
tion of that place, rebuilt, with his brigade, the bridges on 
the Menij)his & Charleston Railroad and erected, fortifica- 
tions at Stevenson. Throughout the months of July and 
August he was prostrated by severe sickness, and, conse- 
quently, was not in the retreat to Kentucky or the battles 
fought in that State. During his illness he wa.'^ assigned 
tc the command of the forces at Cumberland Gap, but 



62 STORIES AND ."SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

could not assume it. Upon his recovery, he was ordered to 
"Washington, and detailed as a member of tlie Fitz John 
Porter court martial, M-liieh occupied forty-iive days, and in 
which his great abilities as a lawyer ; :(! a soldier were 
called Ibrth and freely recognized. When the court 
adjourned he was ordered to report to Gen, Rosecrans, and 
bv him was placed in the responsible position of Chief 
of Staff, though at first it had been intended to give him 
onlv the command of a" di\4sion in the field. 



Gen. Garfield's Proclamation to the Citizens of Sandy Valley. 

On the 16th day of January, 1SG2, Garfield, tlieu in 
command of the Union forces in Eastern Kentucky, issued 
the following address to the inhabitants: 

" Citizens of Sandy Yalley: I have come among you to re- 
store the honor of tlie Union, and to bring baclc the old banner 
wliich you once loved, but which, by tlie machinations of evil 
men, and by mutual misunderstanding, has been dislionored among 
you. To those who are in arms against the Federal Government 
I offer only the alternate of battle or unconditional surrender. 
But to those who have taken no i)art in this war, who are in no 
way aiding or abetting the enemies of this Union— even to those 
Mho hold sentiments averse to the Union, but will give no aid or 
comfort to its enemies— I offer the full protection of tlie Govern- 
ment, both in their persons and property. 

" Let those whc have been se:1:i ■t-d away from the love of their 
country to follow after and aid the destroyers of our peace lay 
down their arms, return to their liomes, bear true allegiance to tlie 
Federal Government, and they shall also enjoy like protection. 
The armv of the Union wages no war of plunder, but comes to 
bring back the prosperity of peace. Let all peace-loving citizens 
who have lied from tlieir homes return and resume again the pur- 
suits of peace and industry. If citizens have suffered from any 
outrages by the soldiers under my command, I invite them to make 
known their complaints to me, and their wrongs shall be redressed 
and the offenders punished. I expect the friends of the l^nion in 
this valley to banish from among them all pi Jvate feuds, and let a 



WAR RECORD. 63 

libeAl love of country direct their conchict toward those wlio 
have been so sadly estinyed and misguided, hoping that these days 
of turbulence may soon be ended and the days of the llepublic 
soon return. J. A. GARFIELD. 

"Colonel Commajidmg Brigade." 

Gen. Garfield moved his for:-es to Piketon, Ky., 120 
miles above the mouth of the Big Sandy. Here he rt-- 
mained several weeks; sending out, meanwhile, expedition^ 
in every direction wherever he could hear of a Rebel camp 
or band, and at length completely cleared the whole coun- 
try of the enemy. 



Heroic Conduct of Gen. Garfield on the Field of Chickamaugna-Dxiving Back 
Longstreet's Columns and Saving Gen. Thomas. 

Gen. Garfield was made a Major-General for '' gallant 
and meritorious r (-rvices at the battle of Ohickamauga." 
AVhat those services were may be learned from the follow- 
ing extract from the history of the Forty-second Ohio In- 
fantry, page 18: 

Trying vainly to check the retreat [of Rosecrans] Gen. 
Garfield was swept with his chief back beyond Rossville. 
But the Chief of Staff could not concede that defeat had 
heen entire. He heard the roar of Thomas' guns on the 
left, and gained permission of Rosecrans to go around 
to that quarter and find the Army of the Cumber- 
land. AVhile the commander busied himself with pre- 
paring a refuge at Chattanooga for his routed army, his 
Chief of Staff went back accompanied by a staff officer and 
a few orderlies, to find whatever part of the army still held 
its ground and save what was lost. It was a perilous ride. 
Lono- before he reached Thomas one of his orderlies was 
killed. Almost alone he pushed on over the obstructed 
road, through pursuers and pursued, found the heroic 
Thomas encircled by fire, but still firm, told him of the 



84 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF U ARE IE LI). 

disaster on the right, and.explainecl liow he could witluh-aw 
liis right wing and fix It upon a new lino to meet Long- 
street's column. The movement was mside just in time, 
but Thomas' line was too short. It would not reach to 
the base of the Tnountain. Longstreet saw the gap, drove 
liis column into it, and would have struck Thomas' column 
fatally in the near. In that critical moment Gen. Gordon: 
Granger came up with Steedman's division, which moved 
in heavy column, threw itself upon Lou'-Ntreet, and after a 
ten'ific struggle drove him back. The dead and wounded: 
lay in heaj)S where' these two columns met, but the ai-niy 
of Gen. Thomas was saved. As night closed in ai-ound the 
heroic Army of the Cumberland, Gens. Garfield and- 
Granger, on loot and enveloped in smoke, directed the 
loading and pointing of a batterj'^ of ISapoleon guns, whose 
flash, as they thundered after the retreating column, 
of the assailants, was the last light that shone upon the^ 
battlefield of Chickamauga. 

This ride of Garfield's was one of the gallantest acts of 
the war, and so recognized at the time by the Government 
and people. It earned Garfield the lasting friendship and- 
regard of Gen. Thomas and all associated with liim, and 
gave him a name as a brave soldier which no malicious 
scribbler can now take away. 

A correspondent on the field, W. S. Furay, under date 
of September 21, 1863, after describing the perilous con- 
dition of the Union Army, speaks of Garfield's ride and 
arrival on the battk^field, as lollovvs: 

Juftt before the storm broke, the brave and high-souled 
Garfield was perceived making his way to the headquarters, 
of Gen. Thomas. He had come to be present at the final 
contest, and in order to do so had ridden all the way from. 
Chattanooga, passing through a fiery ordeal upon the road* 
His horse was shot under him, and his orderly was killed 



WAR RErURlK 65 

bj his side. Still he had come through, lie scarce knew 
how, and here he was to inspire fresh courage into the 
hearts of the brave soldiers, who were holding the enemy 
at bay, to bring them words of greeting from Gen. Rose- 
crans, and to inform them that the latter was reorganizing 
the scattered troops, and, as fast as possible, would hurry 
.them forward to their relief. 

Just upon the side of the hill, to the left, and in rear of 
the Btillsmoking ruins of the house, was gathered a group 
whose names are destined to be historical — Thomas, 
\\ hitaker, Granger, Garfield, Steedman, Wood. Calmly 
they watched the progress of the tempest, speculated upon 
its duration and strength, and 'devised methods to break its 
fury^ The future analyst will delight to dwell upon the 
characteristics and achievements of each member of this 
group, and even the historian of the present, hastening, to 
the completion of his task, is constrained to pause a 
mojnent only to re^ieat their names — Whitaker, Garfield, 
Granger, Thomas, Steedman, Wood, 

The fight around the hill now raged with terror inex- 
perienced before, even upon this terrible day. Our 
soldiers were formed in two lines, and as each marched up 
to the crest and fired a deadly volley at the deadly foe, 
it fell back a little ways, the men lay down upon the 
grouTid to load their guns, and the second line advanced to 
take their place! They, too, in their turn retired, and 
tljen the lines kept marching back and forth, and deliver- 
ing their withering volleys, till the very brain grew dizzy 
as it watched them. And all the time not a man wavered. 
Every motion was executed Mdth as much precision as 
though the troops were on a holiday parade, notwith- 
standing the flower of the rebel army were swarming 
around the foot of the hill, and a score of cannon were 
thundering from three sides upon it. 

5 






STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 60 

But oiir troops are do longer satisfied witli the defensive. 
Gen. Turchin, at the head of his brigr.de charged into the 
rebel lines, and cut his way out again, bringing with him 
300 prisoners. Other portions of this brave band followed 
Turchin's example, until the legions of the enemy were 
ftiirly driven back to the ground they occupied previous to 
commencing the fight. Thus did 12,000 or 15,000 men, 
aiiimated by heroic impulses, and inspired by worthy 
leaders, save from destruction the Army of the Cumber- 
land. Let the Nation honor them as they deserve. 

Among those killed at this battle were: Gen. W. H. 
Lytle; Col. Grose, commanding a brigade in Palmer's 
division; Col. Baldwin, commanding a brigade in Johnson's 
division; Major Wall, of Gen. Davis' staff; Capt. Kussell, 
A. A. G. on Gen. Granger's staff; Col. II. C. Ileg, com- 
manding brigade in Gen. Davis' division; Capt. Tinker, 
of the Sixth Ohio, and Capt. Parshall, of the Thirty-fifth 
Ohio. 



Closing Scenes in Garfield's War Record — Why He Left the Army. 

In 1862, while still an officer in the army, he was elected 
a Representative in Congress from Ohio, from the old Gid. 
dings district. About the same time he was sent to Wash- 
ington as the bearer of dispatches. He there learned for 
the first time of his promotion to a Major-Generalship of 
volunteers " for gallant and meritorious conduct at the bat- 
tie of Chickamauga." He might have retained tliis posi- 
tion in the army; and the military capacity he had dis- 
played, the high favor in which he was held by the Gov- 
ernment, and the certainty of his assigimient to important 
commands, seemed to augur a brilliant future. He was a 



WAR RECORD. 



(M 



poor man, too, and the Major-Generul's salary was more 
than double that of the Congressman. But, on mature re- 
flection, he decide.! that the circumstances under which the 
people had elected him to Congress in a measure compelled 
hin! to obey their wishes. He was lurlhermore urged to 
enter Congress by the officers of the army, who looked to 
him tor aid in procuring such military legislation as the 
x^ountry needed and the army required. Under the beliet 
that the path of usefulness to the country lay m the direc- 
tion in which his constituents had pointed. Gen. Gailieia 
sacrificed what seemed to be his personal interests, ard w 
the 5th of December, 1863, resigned his commissi n- U^ 
nearly three years' service, to enter Congress. 




i_jwa_psf_''ixjiii::' 




GEN. GARFIELD'S Ki..Sll>i:N( E IN WASHINGTON. 



SPEECHES. 



Gen. Garfield is Called to the Halls of Congress from the Fields of War-How 

it was Done-Early Experience of the Farmer Boy 

on the Floor. 

The Congressional District in which Garfield lived waa 
the one long made famous by Joshua R. Giddings.^ The 
old anti-slavery champion grew careless of the arts of poli- 
tics toward the end of his career, and came to look upon a 
nomination and a re-election as a matter of course. 

His over-confidence was taken advantage of in 1858 by 
an ambitious lawyer named- Ilutchins to carry a conven- 
tion against him. The triends of Giddings never forgave 
Hutchins, and cast about for a means of defeating liim. 
The old man himself was comfortably quartered in his Con- 
sulate at Montreal, and did not care to make a fight to get 
back to Congress. So his supporters made use of the pop- 
ularity of Gen. Garfield and nominated him when he was 
in the' field without asking his consent. This was in 1862. 
When he heard of the nomination Garfield reflected that 
it would be fifteen months before the Congress would meet 
to which he would be elected, and believing, as did every- 
one else, that the war could not ]M)ssibly last a year longer, 
concluded to accept. I have often heard him, says a friend, 
express regret that he did not help fight the war through, 
and say that he never would have left the army to go to 

69 



70 STORIES AND SKEICHES OF GARFIELD. 

Congress had he foreseen that the struggle would continue 
beyond the year 1863. He continued his military service 
up to the time Congress met. 

He was elected to succeed Joshua R. Giddings, who had 
served for twenty years as the representative from the dis- 
trict composed of the large and prosperous counties in 
Northeastern Ohio. He resigned from the army under the 
belief that the path of usefulness to his country lay in the 
direction of Congress rather than the military service. He 
sacrificed what seemed to be his personal interest, and 
resigning his commission he entered the Thirty-eighth 
Congress. Before taking his seat he was promoted to 
Major General of volunteers. 

On entering Congress, in December, 1863, Gen. Garfield 
was placed upon the Committee on Military Afiairs with 
Schenck and Farnsworth, who were also fresh from the 
field. He took an active part in the debates of the House^ 
and won a recognition which few new members succeed in 
gaining. 

He was not popular among his fellow members during 
his first term. They thought him something of a pedant 
because he sometimes showed his scholarship in his 
speeches, and they were jealous of his prominence. His 
solid attainments and able social qualities enabled him to 
overcome this prejudice during his second term, and he be- 
came on terms of close friendship with the best men in 
both Houses. 

His committee service during his second term was on the 
Ways and Means, which was quite to his taste, for it gave 
him an opportunity to prosecute the studies in finance and 
political economy which he had always felt a fondness for. 
He was a hard worker and a great reader in those days, 
going home with his arms full of books from the Congres- 
sional Library, and sitting up late of nights to read them. 



SPEECHES. 71 

It ^^a^ then that he laid the foundations of the convictions 
on the subject of National Finance, which he has since held 
to firmly amid all the storms of political agitation. He waa 
renominated in 1864, without opposition, but in 1866 Mr. 
Hutchins, whom he had supplanted, made an effort to de- 
feat him. Hutchins canvassed the district thoroughly, but 
the convention nominated Garfield by acclamation. He 
has had no opposition since by his own party. 

In 1872 the Liberals and Democrats united to beat him, 
but his majority was larger than ever. In 1874 the Greeiv 
backers and Democrats combined and put up a popular 
soldier against him, but they made no impression on the 
result. The Ashtabula district, as it is generally called, ts 
the most faithful to its representatives of any in the North. 
It has liad but four members in half a century. 



Seventeen Years a Member of Congress-Garfield's Great Work in the 
Halls of Legislation-A Triumphant Leader. 

In the Fortieth Congress Gen.*Garfie.a was Chairman a,f 
the Committee on Military Affairs. In the Forty-first he 
was given the Chairmanship of Banking aiid Cun-ency 
which he liked much better, because it was in the line of 
la* financial studies. His next promotion was tothe^li^ir^ 
manship of the Appropriations Committee, which he held 
until the Democrats came into power m the House inl8.5. 
His chief work on that committee was a steady and jucti- 
cious reduction of the expenses of the Government, in 
all the political struggles in Congress he has borne a lead- 
inc. part, his clear, vigorous, and moderate style of argu- 
ment making him one of the most effective debaters m 

either House. . • i q'77 tKo 

When James G. Blaine went to the Senate m 1877 tbe 



72 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

mantle of Republican leadership was by common consent 
placed upon Clartield, and he has worn it ever since. 

Recently Gen. Gartield was elected to the Seriate to the 
seat vacated by Allen G. Thurman on the 4th of March, 
1881. He received the unanimous vote of the Republican 
caucus, an honor never given to any man of any party in 
the State of Ohio. Since his election he has been the re- 
cipient of many complimentary manifestations in Washing- 
ton and in Ohio. 

As a leader in the House he is more cautious and less 
dashing than Blaine, and his judicial turn of mind makes 
him too })rone to look for two sides of a question for him 
to l)e an efficient partisan. When the issue fairly touches 
his convictions, however, he becomes thoroughly aroused 
and strikes tremendous blows. Blaine's tactics were to 
continually harrass the enemy by sharp-shooting surprises 
and picket firing. Garfield waits for an opportunity to 
deliver a pitched battle, and his generalship is shown to 
best advantage when the fight is a fair one and waged on 
grounds where each paj'ty thinks itself strongest. Then 
his solid shot of argument are exceedingly eifective. On 
the stump Garfield is one of the very best oi*ators in the 
Republican party. Pie has a good voice, an air of evident 
sincerity, great clearness and vigor of statement, and a way 
of knitting his arguments together so as to make a speech 
deepen its impression on the mind of the hearer until the 
climax is reached. 

Of his industry and studious habits a great deal might 
be said, but a single illustration will have to suffice here. 
Once during the busiest part of a very busy session at 
Washington, says a friend, " I found him in his library 
behind a big barricade of books. This was no unusujil 
sight, but when I glanced at the volumes I saw that they 
were all difterent editions of Horace, or books relating to 
that poet." 



SPEECHES. 73 

" I tind 1 am overworked, and need recreation," said the 
General. 

*' Now, my theory is that the best way to rest the mind 
is not to let it be idle, but to put it at something quite out- 
side the ordinary line of its employment. So I am resting 
hy learning all the CongressioTial Library can show about 
lIo)*aee and the various editions and translations of his 
poems." 

Through the contests of the Fortieth Congress with the 
President he was firmly on the radical side. His health 
was seriously impaired by his laborious discharge of public 
duties, and at the close of the summer session, by the 
advice of his physician, he sailed for Europe. 

Since his first election Gen. Garfield has served consecu- 
tively in Congress, and has been the leader on the Republi- 
can side for the last five years; his speeches are among the 
most efiective ever delivered by any man in any parliamen- 
tary body, and, while as a leader he has not been considered 
gufticiently aggressive, his advice has always been carefully 
heeded, and has been eft'ectual in holding back the more 
radical of the Kepublicans. 



Oarfield on the Democracy— Extract from one of his Old Speeches— His Walk 
in the Democratic Graveyard. 

Tlie following is an extract from a speech delivered by 
Gen Garfield, August 4th, 1876, in the National House 
of Representatives : 

Mr. Chairman: It is now time to inquire as to the fitness 
of this Democratic party to take control of our great nation 
and its vast and important interest for the next four years. 
1 put the question to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. 
Lamar), what has the Democratic party done to merit that 
great trust? He tries to show in what respects it would 



74 STORTES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

not be dangerous. 1 ask him to sIkjw in what it wotild be 
safe? 

I affirm, and I believe I do not misrepresent the great 
Democratic party, that in the last sixteen years they have 
not advanced one great national idea that is not to-day 
exploded and as dead as Julius Csesar. And if any 
Democrat here will rise and name a great national doctrine 
his party has advanced, within that time, that is. now alive 
and believed in, I will yield to him. (A pause.) In default 
of an answer, I will attempt to prove my negative. 

What were the great central doctrines of the Democratic 
party in the Presidential struggle of 1860? The followers 
of Breckenridge said slavery had a right to go wherever the 
Constitution goes. Do you believe that to-day? And is 
there a man on this continent that holds that doctrine 
to-day? Kot one. That doctrine is dead and buried. The 
other wing of the Democracy held that slavery might be 
established in the Territories if the people wanted it. Does 
anybody hold that doctrine to-day? Dead, absolutely dead! 

Come down to 1864. Your party, under the lead of 
Tilden and Vallandigham, declared the experiment of war 
to save the Union was a failure. Do you believe that 
doctrine to-day? That doctrine was shot to death by the 
guns of Farragut at Mobile, and driven, in a tempest of 
fire, from the valley of the Slienandoah by Sheridan, less 
than a month after its birth at Chicago. 

Come down to 1868. You declared the constitutional 
amendments revolutionary and void. Does any man on 
this floor say so to-day? If so, let him rise and declare it. 

Do vou believe in the doctrine of the Broadhead letter 
of 1868, that the so-called constitutional amendments should 
be disregarded? No; the gentleman from Mississippi 
accepts tTie results of the war! The Democratic doctrine 
of 1868 is dead! 



SPEECHES. 75 

I walk across that Democratic camping-ground as in a 
gi-aveyard. Under my feet resound the hollow echoes of 
the dead. There lies slavery, a black marble column at the 
liead of its grave, on which I read: Died in the flames of 
the civil war; loved in its life; lamented in its death; 
followed to its bier by its only mourner, the Democratic 
party, but dead! And here is a double grave: sacred to 
the memory of squatter sovereignty. Died in the cam- 
paign of 1800. On the reverse side: Socred to the memory 
of Dred Scott and tlie Breckenridge doctrine. Both dead 
at the hands of Abraham Lincoln ! And here a monument 
of brimstone: Sacred to the memory of the rebellion; the 
war against it is a failure; Tilden et Vallaiidigham 
fecerimt, A. D. 1864. Dead on the fleld of battle; shot to 
death by the million guns of the E.e]-)ublic. The doctrine 
of secession; of State sovereignty, Dead. Expired in the 
flames of civil war, amid the blazing rafters of the con- 
federacy, except that the modern ^Eneas, fleeing out of the 
flames of that ruin, bears on his back another Anchises of 
State sovereignty, and brings it here in the person of the 
honorable gentleman from the Appomattox district of 
Virginia (Mr. Tucker). All else is dead! 

N<^w, gentlemen, are you sad, are you sorry for these 
deaths? Are you not glad that secession is dead? that 
slavery is dead? that squatter sovereignty is dead? that the 
doctrine of the failure of the war is dead? Then you are 
glad that you were outvoted in 1860, in 1864, in 1868, and 
in 1872. If you have tears to shed over these losses, shed 
them in the grave-yard, but not in this House of living 
men. 1 know that many a Southern man rejoices that 
these issues are dead. The gentleman from Mississippi 
(Mr. Lamar) has clothed his joy with eloquence. 

Now, gentlemen, if you yourselves are glad that you have 
siifiered defeat during the last sixteen years, will you not 



78 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

be equally glad when you suffer defeat next ^November? 
But pardon that remark; I regret it; I should use no 
bravado. 

Now, gentlemen, corne with me for a moment into 
the camp of the Kepublican party and review its career. 
Our central doctrine in 1860 was that slavery should never 
extend itself over another foot of American soil. Is that 
doctrine dead? It is folded av/ay like a victorious banner; 
its truth is alive for evermore on this continent. In 1864- 
we declared that we would put down the rebellion and 
secession. And that doctrine lives, and will live when the 
Becond Centennial has arrived. Freedom, national, uni- 
versal, and perpetual — our great constitutional amend- 
ments, are they alive or dead? Alive, thank the God tliat 
shields both liberty and union. And our national credit! 
saved from the assaults of Pendleton; saved from the 
assaults of those who struck it later, rising higher and 
higher at home and abroad: and only now in doubt lest its 
chief, its only enemy, the Democracy, should triumph in 
November. 



Garfield's Speech at the TVif^consin Republican , Be-tmion— Outlining the 
Condit.'f'n of the Country. 

At the Twenty -liffh Tleunion of the "Wisconsin Kepub- 
licans, held at Madison, in eluly, 1879, Gen. Garfield spoke 
as follows; 

This vast assembly must have richly enjoyed the review 
of the party's history presented here and celebrated hero 
to-day, and not '^nly a review of the past, but the hopeful 
promises made for the future of that great party. The 
Kepublican party, organized a (piaiter of a century ago, 
was made a necessity :o carry out the pledges of tlie fatlieiTS 
that this should be a land of liberty. 



There was in the early davs of the Republic, a Repub- 
lican party that dedicated this very territory, and all our 
vast territory, to freedom, that promised much for tchools, 
that abolished imprisomiient for debt, and that instituted 
many wise relorms. Rut there. Vv'ere many conservatives 
in those days, whose measures degenerated into treason; 
and the Republican party of to-da}^ was but the revival of 
the Republican party of seventy years ago, under new and 
broader conditions of usefulness. 

It is well to remember and honor the greatest names of 
the Republican party. One of these is Joshua R. Giddings, 
who fn- twenty years was freedom's champion in Congress, 
and, from a feeble minority of two, lived to see a Republi- 
can Speaker elected, and himself to conduct him to the 
chair. Another is Abrahani Lincohi. the man raised up by 
God for a great mission. Xo man ever had a truer appre- 
ciation of the principles of the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, that great charter which it was the mission of the 
Republican party to enforce. 

There was a iitness in the first platform of the Wiscon- 
sin Republicans that they based themselves upon the 
Declaration of Independence. While the Republicans, from 
the first, have been true to their principles, perfecting all 
they promised, as proved to-day by the w'lole record, the 
Democrats, on the other hand, steadily wrong, have been 
forced from one bad position to another. 

Can any Democrat point with pride to his party plat- 
forms of 1854, or find in them any- living issue? The issues 
they then presented led us into war and involved us in n 
o-reat National debt. Looking for the cause of that debt I 
say that the Democratic party caused it. 

We are, as a Xation, emerging from difilculties, and the 
Republican party alone csn probably claim that the bright- 
est page of our country's history luis b».^en written by the 



78 STORIEr AND r KETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

true friends of freedom and progress. The Republican 
party lias y^t work t -lo. Y/o aro confionted to-day in 
Congress by nearly the samo spirit that prevailed in the 
years just Iteforc the var. 

They tell us that the 17ational Government is but the 
servant of the States; that mc- shall not interpose, as a 
Nation, to a-uarantco aa honest election in a State; that if 
we will intei-pose, they will deny aj^propriations. Is this 
less dangerous than their position in IGGl? Have we no- 
interest except in local elections, no ]->ower ic guard the 
ballot-box and protect ourselves against outrajxcs upon it? 
"Why does the South make thi: issue? I answer: They 
have a solid South, and only need to carry Oh! » and JN'^ew 
York to elect the President, and they trust to carry these 
States by the means they bost know how to use. 

There are sentimentalists and optimists who may see no 
danger in this. There had been sentimentalists and opti- 
mists in the Republican party, but to-daj'^all were stahvarts. 
President Ilay^s, when he came into office, was an optimist, 
but he saw all his liopes of conciliation frusti-ated arid j;') 
his advances met with scorn. We all now stand to^ev]'// 
on the issue as one. 



Garfield's Celebrated Speech it the Andersonville Reunion Held at Toledo, 
Ohio, Oct. 3, l'^79— How the General Looks "Without Gloves!" 

The following is the full text of Gen. Garfield's speech at 
the Andersonville reunion at Toled'^ on Oct. 3, 1879. 

"My Comrades, Ladies akd Gentlemen: I have ad- 
dressed a great many audiences, but I never before stood 
in the presence of •^no that I folt so wholly unworthy to 
speak to. A man wh*" eame through the war without 
being shot or made pi-isoner is almost out of place in 
such an asseml^laire as this. 



SPEECHES. 79 

While I have listened to you this evening I have re- 
membered the words of tlie distinguished English- 
man, who once said, ' that he was willing to die for 
Ilia country.' Now to say that a man is willing to die 
for his country is a good deal, but these men who sit before 
us have said a great deal more than that. I would like to 
know where the man is that would calmly step out on the 
platform and say : ' I am ready to starve to death for my 
country.' That is an enormous thing to say, but there 
is a harder thing than that. Find a man, if you can, who 
will walk out before this audience and say: ' I am willing 
to become an idiot for my country.' How many men 
could you find who would volunteer to become idiots for 
their country? 

Now let me make this statement to you, fellow-citizens: 
One liundred and eighty-eight thousand such men as this 
were captured by the rebels who were fighting our govern- 
ment. One hundred and eighty-eight thousand! How 
many is that? They tell me there are 4,500 men and 
women in this building to-night! Multiply this mighty 
audience by forty and you will have about 188,000. 
Forty times this great audience /were prisoners of war to 
the enemies of our country. And to every man of that 
enormous company there stood open night and day the 
offer: 'If you will join the rebel army, and lift up your 
hand against your flag, you are free.' " 

A voice— "That's so." 

Gen. Garfield— '" And you shall have food, and you 
shall have clothing, and you shall see wife, and mother, and 
child.'" 

A voice — " We didn't ao it, though." 

Gen. Garfield — "And do you know that out of that 
188,000 there were less than 3,000 who accepted the 
offer? And of those 3,000, perhaps nine-tenths of them 



60 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

did it. with llie mental reiservution that thcv would (k'sei'tiifc 
the first hour — the first moment, there M'as an op]>urtuiiity.'* 
Yoices—'' That's so." 

Gen. Garfield— " But 185,000 out of tlie* lSs,(KiO Bald:. 
'No! not to see wife again; not to see child aoain- not t(> 
avoid starvation; not to avoid idiocy; not to avoid the 
most h)athsoine of deaths, will I lift tliis hand against my 
country forever.' Now, we praise the ladies for their 
patriotism; we praise our good citizens at home for their 
patriotism; we praise the gallant soldiers who fought and. 
fell. But what were all these things compared with that 
yonder? I bow in reverence. I would stand with 
undsandaled feet in the presence of sucii heroism and such. 
suffering; and I would say to you. fellow-citizens, such 
an assemblage as this has never yet before met on this great 
earth. 

•'Who have reunions? I will not trencli upon forbidden 
ground, but let me say this: Nothing on the earth and 
under the sky can call men together for reunions except 
ideas that have immortal truth and immortal life in them. 
The animals fight. Lions and tigers fight as feroeionsly 
as did you. Wild beasts tear to the death, but they never 
have reunions. Why? Because wild beasts do not fight 
for ideas. They merely fight for blood. 

All these men, and all their comrades went out inspired 
by two immortal ideas. 

First, that liberty shall be universal in America. 

And, second, that this old flag is the flag of a Nation,, 
and n(^t of a State; that the Nation is supreme over all 
people and all coi*porations. 

Call it a State; call it a section; call it a South; call it 
a North; call it anything you wish, and yet, armed with 
the nationality that God gave us, this is a Nation against 
all State-sovereiguity and secesson whatever. It is the 



HOME LIFE. 8! 

immortality of that trutli that makes these reimions, and 
that makes this one. You believed it on the battle-field, 
you believed it in the hell of Andersonville, and you believe 
it to-day, thank God; and you will believe it to the last 
gasp." 

Voices—" Yes, we will." "That's so," etc. 

Gen. Garfield — " Well, now, fellow-citizens and fellow- 
soldiers — but I am not worthy to be your fellow in this 
work. I thank you for having asked me to speak to you. 
[Cries of 'Go on! ' 'Go on! ' 'Talk to us some more,' etc.] 

I want to say simply that 1 have had. one opportunity 
only to do you any service. I did hear a man who stood 
])'/ my side in the halls of the legislation— the man that 
offered on the fioor of Congress the resolution that any man 
nlio commanded colored troops should be treated as a 
pirate, and not as a soldier; as a slave-stealer, and not as 
a soldier — I heard that man calmly say, with his head up 
in the light, in the presence of this American people, that 
the Union soldiers were as well treated, and as kindly 
treated in ail the Southern prisons as were the rebel 
soldiers in all the Northern prisons." 

Voices—" Liar," " Liar! " " He was a liar." 

Gen. Garfield^ — " I heard him declare that no kinder men 
ever lived than Gen. Winder and his Commander-in-Chief, 
Jeft' Davis. [Yells of derision, hisses, etc.] And I took 
it upon myself to overwhelm him with the proof [a roll of 
applause begins], witli the proof of the tortures yon 
suffered, the \vTongs done to you, were suffered and done 
with the knowledge of the Confederate authorities from 
Jefferson Davis down — [great applaiise, waving of hats, 
veterans standing in their chairs and cheering] — that it 
was a part of their policy to make you idiots and skeletons^ 
and to exchange your broken and shattered bodies and 
dethroned minds for strong, robust, well-fed rebel prisoners. 
6 



8-2 STORIED AND SKET'IIES OF QARFIEFD. 

That policy, I affirm, lias never had its parallel for atrocity 
in the civilized world." 

Yoice— " That's so." 

Gen. Garfield^" I- was never heard of in any land since 
the dark ages closed upon the earth. While history lives 
men have memories. Wo can forgive and forget all other 
things before wo can forgive and forget this. 

Finally, and in conclusion, I am willing, for one — and 
I think I speak f^r thousands of others — I am willing to 
see all the bitterness of the late war buried in the grave of 
our dead. I would be willing that we should imitate tlie 
condescending, lovino- kindness of him who planted th€ 
crreen 2:rass on the battlefields and let the fresh flowers 
bloom on all the graves alike. I would clasp hands with 
those who fought against us, make them my brethren, and 
forgive all the past, only on one supreme condition: that 
it be admitted . in • practice, acknowledged in theory, 
that the cause tor which we fought, and you suffered, was 
and is, and forevernKjre will be right, eternally right." 
[Unbounded enthusiasm.] 

Yoices— "That's it," "That's so," etc. 

Gen. Garfield — "That the cause for which they fought 
was, and forever will be, the cause of treason and wrong. 
[Prolonged applause.] Until that is acknowledged my 
hand shall never grasp any rebel's hand across any chasm, 
however small." [Greats applause and cheers.] 




SPEECHES. m 

Garfield's Great Speech at Columbus, Acknowledging His Election as 
United States Senator. 

On. the 14th of January, 1880, Gen. Garfield arrived in 
Oolumbus from Washington, He had that day been form- 
ally declared United States Senator Irom Oliio, his noujina- 
tion by the Republican Legislative caucus having taken 
place the week before. In an informal reception which 
took place in the Hall of the House of Representatives dur- 
ing the evening, the General made the following admirable 
speech: 

Fellow CrnzENs: I should be a great deal more than a 
man, or a great deal less than a man, if I were not extremely 
gratified by this mark of your kindness you. have sliown me 
in recent days, I did not expect any such a meeting as 
this. I knew there was a greeting awaiting me, but did 
not expect so cordial, generous, and general a greeting with- 
out distinction of party, without distinction of interests, 
as I have received to-night. And you will allow me, in a 
moment or two, to speak of the memories this Chamber 
awakens. 

Twenty years ago this last week I first entered this Cham- 
ber and entered upon the duties of public life, in which I 
have been every hour since that time in some capacity or 
other. I left this Chamber eighteen years ago, and I be- 
lieve I have never entered it since that time. But the place 
is familiar, though it was peopled not witli the faces that I 
see before me here to-night alone, but with tlie faces of 
hundreds of people that I knew here twenty years ago, a 
large number of whom are gone from earth 

It was here in this Chamber that the word was first 
brought of the firing on Fort Sumter. 1 remember dis- 
tinctly a gentleman from Lancaster, the late. Senator 
Schleigh — Gen. Schleigh, wlio died not very long ago — I 
remember distinctlv as he came down this aisle, with all the 



84 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

look of agony and anxiety in his face, informing us tLattlie 
guns had opened upon Sumter. 1 remember that one week 
after that time, on motion of a Icfiding Domocrati'; Seniitur, 
who occupied a seat not far from thaf; position (pointing to 
the Democratic side of the Chamber), that we surroiuercjd 
this Chamber to several companies of soldiers, who had 
come to Columbus to tender their ser\ices to the imperiled 
Government. They slept on its carpets and on these sofas, 
and quartered for two or three nights in this Chamber 
while waiting for other quarters outside of the Capitol. 

All the early scenes of the War are associated with this 
plaoe in my mind. Here were the musterings — here was, 
the center, the nerve center, of anxiety and agony. Here 
over 80,000 Ohio citizens tendered their services in the- 
course of three weeks to the imperiled nation. ^ Here, 
where we had been lighting our political battles with sharp 
and severe partisanship, there disappeared, almost as if by 
magic, all party lines; and from both sides of the Chamber 
men went out to take their places on the field of battle. I 
can see now. as I look out over the various scats, where 
sat men who afterward became distinguished in tiie service 
in high rank, and nobly served their constituency and hon- 
ored themsehes. 

We now come to this place, while so many are gon(;; but 
we meet here to-night with the war so far back in the dis- 
tance that it is an almost half-forgotten memory. We 
meet here to-night with a nation redeemed. We meet here, 
to-night under the flag we fought for. We meet witli a 
glorious, a great and grov;ing Repuljlic, made greater and 
more glorious by the sacrifices through which the country 
has passed. And coming here as I do to-night brings the 
two ends of twenty years together, with all the visions of 
the terrible and glorious, the touching- and cheerful, that 
have occurred during that time. 



SPEECHES. 85 

I came here to-iiiglit, fellow-citizens, to tliank this Gen- 
eral Assembly for their great act oi* confidence and compli- 
ment to me. I do not undervahie the office that you have 
tendered to me yesterday and to-day; hut I say, I think, 
-without any mental reservation, that the manner in which 
it was tendered to me is far higher to me, far more desira- 
ble, than the thirig itself. That it has been a voluntary 
_gift of the General Assembly of Ohio, without solicitation, 
tendered to me because of their confidence, is as touching 
and as high a tribute as one man can receive from his fel- 
low-citizens, and in the name of all my friends, for myself, 
I give yon my thanks. 

I recognize the importance of the place to which you 
have elected me; and I should be base if I did not also re- 
cognize the great man whom you have elected me to 
succeed, I say for him, Ohio has had few larger-minded, 
broader-minded men in the records of our history than that 
of Allen G. Thurnian. Differing widely from him, as I 
have done in politics, and do, I recognize him as a man 
liigh in character and great intellect; and I take this occa- 
sion to refer to what I have never before referred to in 
public: that many years ago, in the storm of party fighting, 
when the air was filled with all sorts of missies aimed at the 
character and reimtation of public men, when it was even for 
his party interest to join tlio general clamor against me and 
my associates, Senator Thurnian said in public, in the cam- 
paign, on the stump — when men are as likely to say unkind 
things as at any place in the world — a most generous and 
earnest word of defense and kindness for me which I shall 
never fbroi-et so lone: as I live. I sav, moreover, that the 
flowers that bloom over the garden wall of party politics are 
the sweet.}ss and most fragant that bloom in the gardens of 
thi^ \\T)r]d; and where we can fairly pluck them and enjo/ 
theii- Iragrance, it is manly and delightful to do so. 

And now, gentlemen of the General Assembly, withoui 



86 STOBIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

distinction of party, I recognize this tribute and compli- 
ment paid to me to-night. Whatever my own course may 
be in the future, a large share of the inspiration of my 
future public life will be drawn from this occasion and 
these surroundings, and 1 shall feel anew the sense of ob- 
ligation that I feel to the State ot Ohio. Let me venture 
to point a single sentence in regard to that work. During- 
the twenty years that I have been in public life, almost 
eighteen of it in the Congress of the United States, I have 
tried to do one thing. Whether I was mistaken or other- 
wise, it has been the plan of my life to follow my conviction 
at whatever personal cost to myself. 

I liave represented for many years a district in Congress;, 
whose approbation I greatly desired; but though it may 
seem, perhaps, a little egotistical to say it, I yet desired 
still more the approbation of one person, and his name was 
Garfield. He is the only man that I am compelled to sleep 
with, and eat with, and live with, and die with; and if I 
could not have his approbation I should have bad compan- 
ionship. And in this larger constituency which has called 
me to represent them now, I can only do what is true ta 
my best self, applying the same rule. 

And if I should be so unfortunate as to lose the confi- 
dence of this larger constituency, I must do what every 
other fair-minded man has to do — carry his political life in 
his hand and would take the consequences. But I must 
follow what seems to me to be the only safe rule of my lifp; 
and with that view of the cose, and with that much personal 
reference, 1 leave that subject. 

Tlianking you again, fellow-citizens, members of the 
General Assembly, Republicans as well as Democrats — all, 
party men as I am — thanking you both for what you have 
done and for this cordial and manly greeting, I bid you 
good-night. 



SPEECHES. 87 

Gen. Garfield en the Floor of the Great Chicatjo Convention -Full Text of 
His Eloquent Speech Nominating John Sherman For President- 
Delivered Jane 5, 1880. 

It was after full fifteen minutes ot applause for a pre- 
ceeding candidate, in an assembly of 15,000 souls, that Gen. 
Garfield arose and calmly addressed the Convention at 
Chicago as follows: 

"Mr. President: I have witnessed the extraordinary 
scenes of this Convention with deep solicitude. No emo- 
tion touches my heart more quickly than a sentiment in 
honor of a great and nolile character. But as I sat on these 
seats and witnessed these demonstrations, it seemed to me 
you were a human ocean in a tempest. I have seen the sea 
lashed into fniy and tossed into a spray, and its grandeur 
moves the soul of the dullest man. But I remember that 
it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea from 
which all heights and depths are measured. When the 
storm hiis passed and the hour of calm settles on the ocean, 
when sunshine bathes its smooth surface, then the 
astronomer and surveyer takes the level from which he 
measures all terrestrial heights and depth?. Gentlemen 
of the Convention, your present temper may not mark the 
healthful pulse of the people. 

"When our enthusiasm has passed, when the emotions of 
this hour have subsided, we shall find the calm level of 
public opinion, below the storm, from which, the thoughts 
of a mighty people are to be measured, and by which their 
final action will be determined. Not here, in this brilliant 
circle, where 15,000 men and M-omen are assembled, is the 
destiny of the Ile])nblic to be dec-reed; nOt here, Avhere I 
see the enthusiastic iaces of 756 deleofates waitinof to cast 
their votes into the urn and determine the choice of their 
party; but by 5,000.000 Republican firesides, M'here the 
thoughtful fathers, with wives and childi'en about them, 



88 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF (lARFTEI.D. 

with tlie calm thoughts inspired l)v lo\e of lioiiie and love 
of country, with the history of the past, the hopes of tlie 
future, and the knowledge of tlie great men wlio have 
adorned and blessed our Nation in days gone by, — there 
God prepares the verdict that shall determine the wisdom 
of our work to-night. Not in Chicago, in the heat of June, 
but in the sober quiet that conies between now and 
November, in the silence of deliberate judgment, w-ill this 
great question he settled. Let us aid them to-night. 

"But now, gentlemen of the Convention, what do we 
want? Bear with me a moment. Hear me for this c<mse, 
and, for a moment, be silent that you may hear. Tv/enty- 
five yeai's ago this Republic was wearing a trii)ie chain of 
bondage. Long familiarity with the traffic 'in the body 
and souls of men had paralyzed the consciences of a 
majority of ouii people. The baleful doctrine of State 
sovereignty had shocked and weakened the nobUist and 
most beneficent powers of the National (luvernment, and 
the grasping power of slavery was seizing the virgin Terri- 
tories of the West and dragging them into the den of 
eternal bondage. At that crisis the Republican party was 
born. It drew its first inspiration from the fire of liberty 
which God has lighted in every man's heart, and which all 
the powers of ignorance and tyranny can never wholly 
extinguish. The Republican party cam^ i"<> (IpJiv^pr and 
save the Republic. It entered the arena when the 
beleaguered and assailed Territories were struggling for 
freedom, and drew around them the sacred circle of liberty, 
which the deinon of slavery has never dared to cross. It 
made them free forever. 

"Strengthened by its victory on the frontier, the young 
party, under the leadership of that great man, who, <>ji this 
spot, twenty years ago, was made its leadei-, entered the 
National Capital and assumed the high duties of the Gov- 



SPEECHES. 89 

eminent. The. light which shone from its banner dispelled 
the darkness in which slavery had enshrouded the Capitol 
and melted the shackles of every slave, and consumed, in 
the fire ot liberty, every slave-pen within the shadow of the 
Capitol. Our JN^ational industries, by an impoverishing 
policy, were themselves prostrated, and the streams ot 
revenue flowed in such feeble currents that the Treasury 
itself was well nigh empty. The money of the people was 
the wretched notes of 2,000 uncontrolled and irresponsible 
State bank corporations, which were tilling the country with 
a circulation that poisoned rather than sustained the life of 
business, 

"Tlie Republican party changed all this. It abolished 
the babel of confusion and gave the country a currency as 
national as its flag, based upon the sacred faith of the 
people. It threw its protecting arm around our great 
industries, and they stood erect as with new life. It filled 
with the spirit of true nationality all the great functions 
of the Government. It confronted a rebellion of unex- 
ampled magnitude, with a slavery behind it, and, under 
God, fought the final battle of liberty until victory was 
won. Then, after the storms of battle, were heard the 
sweet, calm words of peace uttered by the conquering 
Nation, and saying to the conquered foe that lay prostrate 
at its feet : 'This is our only revenge, that you join us in 
lifting to the serene firmament of the Constitution, to shine 
like stars forever and forever, the immortal principles of 
truth and justice, that all men, white or black, shall be free 
and stand equal before the law.' Then came the questions 
of reconstruction, the public debt, and the public faith. 

" In the settlement of these questions the liepub- 
lican party has completed its twenty-five years of 
glorious existence, and it has sent us here to prepare it for 
another lustrum of duty and of victory. How shall we 



90 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

do this great work? AVe cannot do it, my (riends, by assail- 
ing onr Ilepublican brethren. God forbid tliat 1 thould say 
one word to cast a shadow upon any name on tlie roll of 
our heroes. This coming figlit is our Thermopylae. "We 
are standing upon a narrow isthmus. If our Spartan hosts 
are united we can withstand all the Persians that the Xerxes, 
of Democracy can bring against us. 

Let us hold our ground this one year, for the stars in 
their courses fight for us in the future. The census to be 
taken this year will bring reinforcements and continued 
power. But in order to win this victory now, we want the 
vote ot every Republican, of every Grant Ilepublican in 
America, of every Blaine man and every anti-Blaine man. 
The vote of every follower of every candidate is needed to 
make our success certain; therefore, I say gentlemen and 
brethren, we are here to calmly counsel together, and inquire 
what we shall do. A voice: ' Nominate Garfield.' [Gieat 
applause.] 

'' We want a man whose life and opinions embody all the 
achievements ot which I have spoken. We want a man 
who, standing on a mountain height, sees all the achieve- 
ments of our past history, and carries in his heart the mem- 
ory ot all its glorious deeds, and who, looking forward, pre- 
pares to meet the labor and the dangers to come. We want 
one who will act in no spirit of unkindness toward th<ise we 
lately met in battle. The Ilepublican party ofiers to our 
brethren of the South the olive branch of peace, and wishes 
them to return to brotherhood, on this supreme condition 
that it shall be admitted, forever and forever more, that, in 
the war for the Union, we were right and they wei-e wr«»iig. 
[Cheers.] On that supreme condition we meet them aa 
brethren, and no other. We ask them to share with us the 
blessings and honors of this great Republic. 

" Now, gentlemen, not to weary you, I am about to pre- 



SPEECHES. 91 



sent a name for your consideration — the name of a man who 
was the comrade, and associate, and friend of nearly all 
those noble dead whose faces look down n])on us from these 
walls to-night [cheers] ; a man who began his career of pub- 
lic service twenty -hve years ago, whose first duty was cour- 
ageously done in the days of peril on the plains of Kansas, 
when the first red drops of that bloody shower began to fall 
which finally swelled into the deluge of war. He bravely 
stood by young Kansas then, and, returning to his duty in 
the National Legislature, through all subsequent time his 
pathway has been marked by labors performed in every de- 
partment of legislation. 

You ask for his monuments. I point you to twenty -five 
years of the national statutes. Not one great beneficent 
statute has been placed on our statute books with- 
out his intelligent and powerful aid. He aided 
these men to formulate the laws that raised our 
great armies and carried us through the war. His hand 
was seen in the workmanship of those statutes that restored 
and brought back the unity and married calm of the 
States, His hand was in all that great legislation that 
created the war currency, and in a greater work that 
redeemed the promises of the government, and made the 
currency e(^ual to gold. And when, at last called from the 
halls of legislation into a high executive ofiice, he displayed 
that experience, intelligence, firmness, and poise of 
character which has carried us through a stormy period of 
three years. With one-half the public press crying 
'Crucify him!' and a hostile Congress seeking to prevent 
success— in all this he remained unmoved until victory 
crowned him. 

The great fiscal affairs of the notuui and the great 
business interests of the country he has guarde.d and pre- 
served, while executing the law ot resumption, and 



02 



STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 



eifectiiig its olvject, witliout a jar, and against the false 
prophecies of one-half of the press and all the Democracy 
of this Continent. He has shown himself able to meet 
with calmness the great emergencies of the government tor 
twenty five years. He has trodden the perilous high ts of 
public duty, and against all the shafts of malice has borne 
his breast unharmed. He has stood in the blaze of " that 
fierce light that beats against the throne," but its fiercest 
ray has found no flaw in his armor, no stain on his shield. 
1 do not present him as a better Republican, or as a 
better man than thousands of others we honor, but I pre- 
sent him for your deliberate consideration. I nominat'* 
John Sherman, of Ohio. 




THE NOMINATION. 

Comparative Statement of Ballots. 
The number of ballots cast at Chicago is by no means 
unprecedented. In 1S52 Gener-d Scott was, nominated on 
the fifty-third, and General Pierce on the forty-ninih ballot. 
The ill-omened Charleston Convention in 1860 east fifty- 
seven ineffectual ballots, and went to pieces without nomi- 
nating anybody, ^o Republican Convention, however, 
has ever cast ss many ballots as were recorded at Chicago. 
Freemont was nominated on the first ballot, Lincoln on the 
third for his first term and on the first for his second term, 



r 











•Exposition Building, In which w.is held the Nation..! Kepublican Con%entioii of 1880.] 

Grant on the fir^t for each term, Greeley on the sixth, and 
Hayes on the seventh. The firi^t National Convention ever 
held in the United States nominated Henry Clay in 1831. 
William Wirt, Mr. Van Buren, General Harrison and Mr. 
Clay were subsequently nominated on the first ballot. Mr. 
Polk rerpiired nine, General Cass four, James Buchanan 
seventeen, and Horatio Seymour twenty-two ballots. 

At the Chicago Convention Gen. Garfield received 399 
votes on the thirty-sixth ballot. Up to the thirty-fourth, • 
his highest number was tv;o. The following tables show 
the essential points connected with Gai-field's nomination: 

9b 



94 



STORIES AND SKEICHES OF GARFIELD. 



The Bkeak to Garfield— Thikty-fourth Ballot. 



States and Terri- 
tories. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

California 

Colorado 

Connecticut 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

llliijois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts 

Michigan 

]\iinnesota 

Mississipj)! 

]Missouri 

Jvebraska 

Kevada 

yew Hampshire 

New Jersey 

New Yoik 

North Carolina 

Ohio 

Oiegon 

Pennsylvania 

Ikhode Island 

■>outh Carolina 

'I'ennessee 

J'exas 

A^erniont 

Virginia 

West Virginia 

Wisconsin 

Arizona 

Dakota 

District of Columbia 

Idaho 

Montana 

New Mexico 

Utah 

Washington 

Wyoming 



16 
12 



S 

8 

24 

2 

4 
20 

8 

7 
4 
1 

8 
29 



50 
6 



11 
17 
13 

16 
1 



Total 312 



12 

3 
6 

9 

10 

20 

22 

6 

1 

4 

14 



21 
6 
4 

6 

6 

10 

14 

18 

9 

G 

22 

iS 

1 
4 
1 

3 

8 
1 
2 
1 
1 
2 
2 
2 
1 



275 



21 



2 

2 

14 

34 



10 



16 



107 



11 



4 29 18 



I HE NOMINATION 
THiRTY-FiFTn Ballot. 



9d 



States and Ter- 
ritories. 



Alabama 

Arkansas 

California 

Colorado 

Connecticut 

Delaware 

Florida 

Oeorgia 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire. . 

New Jersey 

New York 

North Carolina — 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania 

Khode Island 

South Carolina — 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Vermont 

Virginia 

West Virginia 

Wisconsin 

Arizona 

Dakota 

District of Columbia 

Idaho 

Montana 

New Nexico 

Utah 

Washington 

Wyoming 



Totals 313 



16 
12 



24 
1 

4 
20 



7 
4 
1 
1 
8 
29 



50 



36 

11 
17 
13 

16 
1 



4 

12 

3 



9 

10 

2 

22 

6 

1 

4 

14 

3 

21 
6 
4 

"6 

6 

10 

14 

18 



6 
20 
8 
1 
4 
1 



2 
21 



251 



2 

2 

13 

34 



27 



10 



99 



16 



11 



23 



50 



96 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

TriTTlTT-SIXTH AND LaST BaLLOT— GARFIELD I^OMINATED. 



Statks and Territories. 



Alabama . 



Ai'lcansUnS 

Cfililornii 

CoJonido 

Connecticut 

B(;laware 

Ploriua 

G'.-oY^hi 

Illinois 

Xmliaiui 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Keuti:;cky 

Louisiana 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts 

Mif^higan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

Nebraska 

Keva'la. 

Kt w llaiiipshii-e 

]NeAV Jersey 

Kevv Yorl. 

North (Carolina. 

Ohio* 

Oregon 

Pennsylvaiiia 

lil!ode Isiantl 

Soath Carolina 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Verniout 

Virginia 

West Virginia 

"■A'isconsin 

Ari/.ona 

Dakota 

DisLiict ot Columbia. 

Idaho 

Montana 

New Mexica 

Utah 

WasV-ington 

■Wyoming 



Totals. 



12 
12 

G 
12 

(5 

8 
22 
42 
;:!0 
22 
10 
24 
1() 
14 
It) 
2() 
22 
10 
It) 
oO 

t) 

C 
10 
1-S 
70 
20 
43 

6 
58 

8 
14 
24 
Iti 
10 
22 
10 
20 



755 



Itj 

12 



8 

8 

24 

1 

4 

20 
8 

C. 
4 
1 



29 



50 



8 
1') 
1.5 

If) 
1 



4 

12 

1 

tj 

10 
6 



300 



42 



i I 



11 



1 

7 

29 

22 

6 

a 

8 

14 

10 

22 

21 

8 

9 

1 

6 

3 

10 

18 

20 

15 

43 

6 

21 

8 

6- 

8 

3 

10 

3 

9 

20 

2 

2 

2 

2 

2 

2 

2 

2 

2 



5 399 



•Ceil. Garfield not voting. 



THE yOMINATION. 



97 



SUMMARY 



Ballot. 



1. 
2. 

3. 
4. 
5 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 
10. 
11. 
12. 
13. 
14. 
15. 
IG. 
17. 
18. 
19. 
20. 
21. 
22. 
23. 
24. 
25. 
26. 
27 
28. 
29. 
30. 
31. 
32. 
33. 
34. 



O 

304; 
30") 

305 

305 1 

305 1 

305; 

3051 

306; 

30S 

3051 

305] 

304 

305) 

3051 

300 1 

306 

303 

305 

305 

306' 

305 

305 

304 

305 

302 

303 

.".Ofij 

307 

305 

306, 

30S 

309 

30!) 

312 

313 

306 



284 
282 
2S2 
281 
281 
280 
281 
2.S4 
282 
282 
281 
283 
285 
285 
281 
283 
284 
283 
279 
27(i 
276 
2 
2' 
279 
281 
280 
•ZTi 
279 
278 
279 
276 
270 
276 
275 
257 
42 



30 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
32 
32 
33 

pi 



89 


35 


88 


36 


88 


36 


90 


3(> 


91 


35 


96 


32 


93 


35 


96 


35 


97 


35 


97 


30 


93 


35 


94 


35 


93 


36 


93 


36 


91 


35 


116 


35 


120 


33 


118 


37 


117 


44 


110 


44 


107 


30 


99 


23 


3 


5 



34 
32 
32 
32 
32 
32 
32 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
12 
11 
11 
11 
11 
11 
11 



10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
lOl 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
7 
4 
3 
3 
4 
4 
3 



1 

1 

1 

17 

50 

399 



w 



Q 



put 



4? 



98 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

Enthasiasm on Fire— Making the Nomination of Gen, Garfield Unanimoas 
at the Chicago Bepublican Convention— Speeches of Messrs. Conk- 
ling, Logan, Beaver, Hale, Pleasants, and Harrison. 

Immediately after Gen. Garfield had received the 399 
votes of the Chicago Convention, it was the desire of the 
body to make his nomination unanimous. This was 
eft\;cted amid the greatest enthusiasm, and called forth the 
following brief and eloquent speeches: 

SENATOR CONKLING, OF NEW YORK. 

Mr. Chairman — James A. Garfield, of Ohio, having re- 
ceived a majority of all the votes cast, I rise to move that 
he be unanimously presented as the nominee of this Con- 
vention. The Chair, under the rules, anticipates my mo- 
tion, "and being on my feet, I avail myself of the opportun- 
ity. to congratulate the Republican party upon the good- 
natured and the well-tempered rivalry which has distin- 
guished this animated contest. Well, gentlemen, I would 
speak louder, but having sat un'ler the cool wind of these 
windows, 1 feel myself unable to. I was in the act to say, 
Mr. Chairman, that I trust that the zeal, the fervor, and 
now the unanimity seen in the Convention will be trans- 
planted to the field of the conflict, and that all of us who 
have borne a part against each other will find ourselves 
with equal zeal bearing the banner, and with equal zeal car- 
rying the lance of the Republican party into the ranks of 
the enemy. 

SENATOR LOGAN, OF ILLINOIS. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention — "We 
are to be congratulated that we have arrived at a conclu- 
sion in reference to presenting the name of a candidate to 
become the standard-bearer of the Republican party for 
President of the United States. In union and harmony 
there is strength. Whatever may have transpired in this 
Convention that may have momentarily marred the feel- 



THE NOMINATION. ou 

ings of any one here, I hope that in our conclusion it will 
pass from our minds. I, sir, with the friends of, I think, 
one of the grandest men that ever graced the face of the 
earth [ap]:)lause] stood ever here to light a friendly battle in 
favor of his nomination. But, sir, the Convention has 
chosen another leader. The men who stood by Grant's 
banners will be seen in the front of this contest on every 
iield. We will go forward, sir, not with tied hands, not 
with sealed lips, not with bridled tongues, but to speak the 
truth in favor of the grandest party that has ever been or- 
ganized in this country, to maintain its principles, main- 
tain its power, and to preserve its ascendancy. And sir, 
with the leader you have selected, my judgment is victory 
will perch upon our banners. I, sir, as one of the repre- 
sentatives from the State of Illinois, second the nomination 
of James A. Garfield, of Ohio, and I hope it may be made 
unanimous. 

GEN. BEAVER, OF PENN.SYLVANIA. 

The State of Pennsylvania having had the honor of first 
naming in this Conventio4i the gentleman who has been 
nominated as the standard-bearer of the Eepublican party 
in the approaching national contest, I rise, sir, to second 
the motion which has been made to make that nomination 
unanimous, and to assure this Convention and the people 
of this country i\\&t Pennsylvania is heartily in accord with 
this nomination; that she gives her full concurrence to it, 
and that this country may expect from her the best major- 
ity that has been given for a Presidential candidate in 
numy years. 

MR. HALE, OF MAINE. 

Mr. President: In returning heartfelt thanks to the 
men in this convention who have aided us in the fight that 
we have made for the Senator from Maine, and speaking, 
as I know that T do, for them here, I say this most heartily: 



100 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

We have not gotten the man that we came to nominate, 
but we have got a man in whom we have the greatest and 
most perfect confidence. [Cheers.] The nominee of tliis 
convention is no new or untried man, and in that respect 
no dark liorse. When he came here representing his State 
in the front of that delegation, and was seen here, every 
man knew him before that, and because of our faith in 
him, and because we were in that emergency glad to help 
make him the candidate of the Republicans for President 
of the United States, because of these things I stand here 
to pledge the Blaine forces of this convention to earnest 
effort from now until the ides of November, that shall 
make Jas. A. Garfield the next President of the United 
States. 

MR. W. H. PLEASANTS, OF VIRGINIA. 

Mk. Ciiair]\lin: As New York, Illinois, and Maine, 
along with Pennsylvania, have spoken, I stand here 
probably occupying a peculiar (but most rightly so) posi- 
tion to that of the majority ot the people of this conven- 
tion. I came here, sir, from Virginia, instructed by the 
Btate Convention to vote for that peculiar and most dis- 
tinguished man, the most renowned in the world, Ulysses 
S. Grant, and I have proved it sincere here; I have been 
standing upon this floor, and upon all occasions casting^ 
my vote to the last for that man. Bift, sir, as the con- 
vention has thought best to nominate James A. Garfield, 
of Ohio, for President of the Unithd States, it may not be 
that we can promise you Virginia, but we can promise you 
this, as humble men, and as men who have on all occasions 
shown their devotion to the Kepublican principles of the 
country; men who, as Virginia Republicans, on one 
occasion, gave the electoral vote of Virginia to Ulysses S. 
Grant; and wliile a division exists in the Republican party 
of that State, we hope in November next to return your 



THE NOMINATION. iCl 

nominee. Although it was said that we had all to receive 
and nothing to give, we now receive James A. Garlield, 
and will en^leavor to give him Virginia. I, for one — and 
I speak for this delegation, and for every Republican in 
the State — second the nomination of James A. Garfield, 
and the motion to make the .vote unanimous. 

BEN HARRISON, OF INDIANA. 

I am not in very good voice to address the convention. 
Indiana has been a little noisy within the last hour, and, 
though the Chairman of this delegation, I forgot myself 
so much as to abuse my voice. I should not have detained 
the convention to add any word to what has been said in a 
spirit of such commendable harmony over this nomination, 
if it had not been for the over partiality of my friends 
from Kentucky, with whom we have had a good deal of 
pleasant intercourse. They insist, sirs, as I am the only 
defeated candidate for the Presidency on the floor of this 
convention, having received one vote from some misguided 
friend from Pennsylvania, who, unfortunately for me, 
didn't have staying qualities, and dropped out on the next 
ballot. I want to say to the Ohio delegation that they 
may carry to their distinguished citizen who has received 
the nomination at the hands of this convention my 
encouraging support. I bear him no malice at all. But, 
Mr. Chairman, I will defer my speeches until the cam- 
paign is hot, and then, on every stump in Indiana, and 
wherever else my voice can help on this great Kepublican 
cause to victory I hope to be found. 




102 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

Gen. Garfield En Boute for Home After His Nomination for Presiaent— 
From Illinois to Ohio— Incidents and Welcomes by the Way. 

The iirst emotions of sui-j^rise being past, General Gar- 
field bore the fresh penalties of greatness with equanimity 
and apparently with some sense of enjoyment. From the 
moment his nomination became assured, he was made the 
recipient of such exuberant and spontaneous honors as loyal 
crowds in this republic delight to bestow upon their favor- 
ites. The music of brass bands announced his first appear- 
ance in the office of the hotel in Chicago, as he came from 
his room, clad for his journey to his Ohio home. A band 
and hundreds of people accomanied him to the depot, where 
a great crowd had gathered to wish him God-speed to his 
liome, and hence through the campaign to the White 
House. When he arrived at the depot, there was great 
cheering and waving of hats. 

General Garfield came to Cleveland in a special car, ac- 
companied by a number of intimate personal friends, 
among whom were Gov. Charles Foster, of Oliio; S. T. 
Everett, President of the Second National Bank of Cleve- 
land; Gen. James Barnett, an old military friend of Gen. 
Garfield, he having been Chief of Artillery in the armies of 
Rosecrans and Thomas; Col. D G. Swaim, Judge Advocate 
of the United States Army, formerly Adjutant of the 42d 
Ohio Volunteers (Garfield's regiment); Lieutenant-Colonel 
L. A. Sheldon, Mayor W. II. Williams, and Capt. Charles 
E. Henry, all of whom were also officers of Garfield's regi- 
ment; I. F. Mack, of the Ohio Register, Sandusky; N. B. 
Sherwin, J. W. Tyler, and Major Eggleston, of Cleveland, 
were also with Gen. Garfield. 

Once out of the din of Chicago, Gen. Garfield and*liis 
friends lighted their cigars and passed the hours in conning 
over the stirring events of the past week reading congratu- 
latory dispatches, and in a casual way discussing the politi- 



THE yOMINATlON. 103 

cal outlook. Geii. Garfield gave brief expression to liis 
gratification at the touching incidents of the last twenty- 
four hours which had brought out so many evidences of the 
universal appreciation in which his public services are held, 
and mentioned feelingly the handsome compliment paid 
him by the House of Representatives in Washington * 
Gov, Foster alluded jokingly to the popular impression 
that lie may be Gen. Garfield's successor in Senatorial hon- 
ors, saying that he was already filling Garfield's shoes, hav- 
ing had his own stolen at the lx>tel in Chicago, and been 
compelled to accept the loan of a pair of these needful arti- 
cles from the General, 

At Laporte,*Ind., the first stopping place of any conse- 
quence, many hundreds of people, with a brass band, had 
collected to salute Gen, Garfield as he passed. Gov, Foster 
made a brief speech introducing Gen. Garfield, when there 
were deafening cheers from the multitude. CoL Sheldon 
followed, briefly telling the story of Chicago. At South 
Bend the scene was repeated, but with a larger crowd, and 
of course louder cheering. All along the route, at the 
hajnlets through which the train passed without stopping, . 
and e\;en at farm houses, people gathered and gazed and ■ 
cheered in one continued outburst. 

Indiana's welcome. 

At Elkhart, Ind., where the train made a stop for din-; 
ner, a brass band led the way along the railroad platform 
to the dining room, and after dinner it headed the column 
on its return to the cars. At Goshen hundreds ot people 
were waiting with a gun mounted on a log, the first dis- 
charge from which dismounted^ the piece; but the crowd 
made up in enthusiasm for this mishap. . i 

At Liffonier the ceremonial ot introduction was some-, 
what varied. Gen. Garfield getting ahead and introducing 
Gov. Charlie Foster to the crowd of an unnamed water sta- 



104 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIEFD. 

tion, where a dozen men and bojs — apparently the whole 
male population — had gathered. Several of the- latter 
climbed aboard the car, inquiring for the cKjming man. 
G'sn. Garfield was pointed out, and bowed. 

** Hallo! " shouted the delighted spokesman of the assem- 
blage, as the train moved away, " We'll support you." 

At Kendallville the ladies of the village were largely rep- 
resented in the greeting crowd, several of them bearing 
bouquets for presentation to the man they had assembled 
to honor. At AVaterloo and Butler, the last two stopping 
places in Indiana, the scenes enacted at the stations previ- 
ously passed were repeated. All along the lines crowds had 
been growing larger proportionately to the size of the 
towns, and the salutations were enthusiastic. 

IN onio. 

Crossing the line into Ohio, at Edgerton the greetings, 
of course, suffered no diminution in point of numbers or 
enthusiasm, but fewer opportunities were offered for giving 
expression to the public feeling than in Indiana. Every- 
where the people, it was reported, were wild with enthusi- 
asm. 

At Bryan an afi'ecting incident occurred. Mr. William 
Letcher, an old gentleman, a cousin of Gen. Garfield, be- 
tween whom and himself exist ties of tender friendship, 
came on the air, prepared with a brief little speed) of con- 
gratulation. He was so overcome with emotion, however, 
that he could only ejaculate, " Cousin James," and burst 
into tears. A friend recalled the fact that Mr. Letcher liad 
held Gen. Garfield when a baby in his arms at the funeral 

of his father. 

« 

CONGRATULATIONS. 

The following are a few of the hundreds of congratula- 
tory telegrams received by Gen. Garfield during the day: 
Prof Simom Newcombe. the astronomer at Washington, 



THE NOMINATION. 105 

■^' Tliousand congratulations on the success of the office in 
finding the man." 

J. B. Dinsmore, Captain of " The Garfield Guards, Sut- 
ton, Nebraska: " " Gen. Garfield's Guards were organized 
to-night, with forty-eight members. Great enthusiasm; 
torchlight procession and ratification meeting." 

William R. Johnson and 600 others, Ann Arbor, Mich.: 
'* The students of the University of Michigan send congrat- 
ulations." 

A. S. Stratton, Mayor of Madison, Lake county (Gen. 
Garfield's own county), Ohio: "Madison sends greetings; 
immense enthusiasm; cannon, bonfires, speeches, and 
cheers." 

Frederick W. Pitkin, Chairman, and K. G. Cooper, Sec- 
retary, Denver, Col. : " At an enthusiastic ratification meet- 
ing of the Republicans of Denver, held this evening, the 
following resolution was unanimously adopted: 

" Resolved^ By the Republicans of Denver in mass meet- 
ing assembled, that we heartily endorse the nomination of 
James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur, and we pledge 
the State of Colorado for the Chicago nominations with 
5,000 majority." 

Thomas H. Wilson, member of the General Assembly, 
Youngstowm, Ohio: "Youngstown ablaze. Your friends 
have been hoping for just such a result, although appreci- 
ating the delicacy of your situation. The party has hon- 
ored and saved itself." 

Eli H. Murray, an old friend of Gen. Gai-field's, now 
Governor of Utah: "Telegrams assure me that I was r\g}a.i 
in naming you President. God bless you." 



IOC STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

Garfield's Informal Acceptance of the Nomination— His Sense of the Re- 
sponsibility. 

Near midnight, in Chicago, June 9th, J880, the Com- 
mittee appointed by Senator Hoar to wait on Generals 
Garfield and Arthur and notify them of their nomination, 
found them in the club room of the Grand Pacific Hotel, 
and Senator Hoar, as Chairman, made an appropriate 
speech. 

Gen. Garfield replied : 

Mk. Chairman and Gentlemen : 1 assure you that the 
information you have officially given to me brings the sense 
of very grave responsibility, and es])ecially so in view of 
the fact that I was a member of your body, a fact that could 
not have existed with propriety had I had the slightest 
expectation that my name would be connected with the 
nomination for the oftice. I have felt with you great 
solicitude concerning the situation of our party during the 
struggle; but, believing that you are correct in assuring 
me that substantial unity has been reached in the con- 
clusion, it gives me a gratification tar greater than any 
personal pleasure your announcement can bring. 

I accept the trust committed to my hands. As to the 
work of our party, and as to the character of the campaign 
to be entered upon, I will take an early occasion to reply 
more fully than I can properly do to-night. 

I thank you for the assurances of confidence and esteeni 
you have presented to me, and hope we shall see our future 
as promising as are indications to-night. 

Senator Hoar, in the same manner, presented the 
nomination to General Arthur, who accepted it in a brief 
and inlbrmal way. 



THE NOMINATION. 107 

Hov the News of Oarfleld's Nomination was Received at Hiram College 
— Eiaging the Old BeU. 

When the news was received at Hiram College, where 
Garlield had been a school boy, Professor and Presid^it, 
the College bell, which Garfield used to ring for his tuition, 
was wildly rung, and the people came running from every 
part of the little towni built around the College Square, to 
gjither under the old bell to clasp hands and shout their joy. 

Everybody who went to school with Garfield: every 
pupil who remembers him as a rigid disciplinarian, but as 
the first and strongest on the ball ground, where he spent 
many hours with his scholars; every soldier who went to 
the war in the old Forty-Second, and all the pet>ple of this 
little town, Avho have lived here in the same houses thirty 
years, when as a youth he came among them, all and each 
loved Garfield; and as there were many representatives of 
each class, we can imagine the character of tlie occasion. 



First Vote for Garfield in the Chicago Convention— The Man Who Gave it 

Voted for Zaohary Taylor and Abraham Lincoln Under Like 

Circumstances. 

A prominent gentleman who, in speaking of the incidents 
of the Chicago Convention, which nominated Gen. Gar- 
field, said that the Pennsylvanian who cast the first and 
only vote which Gen. Garfield received for several ballots 
was Caleb N. Taylor, a delegate from the Bucks District. 

This gentleman says that while in Chicago he met Mr. 
Taylor, who was well known to him, he having been a Rep- 
resentative in Congress for several terms, and a ])erson wlio, 
though a Quaker, always took a great interest in public 
affairs, but was exceedingly deaf. 

Mr. Tavlor accosted this orentleman in one of the corri- 



108 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

dors of the Palmer House and remarked that he expected 
to cast the first vote for the man who woukl be nominated, 
He declined to mention his name, but added that if lie 
watched his vote he would discover who this gentleman 
"vva's. 

Mr. Taylor then mentioned several instances in his ex- 
perience. He stated that, in 1848, his constituents sent 
him to Harrisburg with instructions to vote as they had 
directed, Imt against this verdict he had cast his vote for 
Zachary Taylor, and for some time his was the only vote 
he received, and Taylor was subsequently nominated. In 
18G0 he was again sent to the National Convention at 
Chicjigo, with instructions how he should vote. 

He again disregarded these instructions and cast his first 
vote for Abraham Lincoln, who was nominated. Mr. 
Taylor, in the late Chicago Convention, as already stated, 
cast his first vote for Garfield, who was also nominated. 



Wbat Prominent Foreign-Born Citizens Say of the Convention— Tliey Declare 
it Positively American. 

The following opinions of intelligent foreign -bom 
citizens, respecting the Republican Convention at Cnicago, 
which nominated Gen. Garfield for President, are exceed- 
ingly interesting, and to the point: 

OPINION OF EX-LIEUT.-GOV. MULLEB. 

Wlioever has studied the history of the ancients, and by 
its aid and lights has formed an idea of the imposing mag- 
nificence of the peoples' mass-meetings as they w-ere held 
in the classic times of Greece and the Roman Empire for 
the purpose of listening to lectures, political and other 
matter-of-State discussions, witnessing public plays or 
gladiatorial contests, can find in the picture developed be- 



THE NOMINATION. 109 

fore my eyes in this Eepublican National Convention an 
approaching counterpart. 

Ten thousand stalwart men fillod the immense and 
splendidly- decorated hall; all seats, row upon rcw, and 
closely joined, were occupied, so that hardly a bullet could 
drop to the floor. All the different delegations irorn the 
thirty eight States, the eight Territories, and the District 
of Columbia, had their space and seats allotted to them, 
and the galleries were filled with the most prominent and 
talented men of the country. ^ 

The impression which this convention of sovereign 
citizens of a free land made upon the quiet observers was 
grand and imposing beyond all description, No showy 
and gold -embroidered unifoi-ms, no diamond-stars and 
decorations of any order, or other such like tinsel, as are 
graciously bestowed by monarchs and princes upon their 
devoted subjects, attracted my attention, but civic and 
democratic simplicity in the outward appearance of all 
those present greeted my eyes! Ileser\-e, self-reliance, and 
intelligence were beaming on the faces of all who composed 
this vast assembly, and the thought that these men could 
ever give up all their country's traditions and its free in- 
stitutions as not worthy of preservation, disappeared at once 
from my mind. 

At all events, my observations during the session of this 
Convention so far have quieted all my apprehensions that 
among the people of this country symjiarhies for a so-called 
strong or monarchical government could ever take root. 

I am convinced now that everyfchino- which has mani- 
fested itself in this diiection so far emanates only from 
those classes of our population commonly designated as 
" Shoddyites," who are represented in real life by blase 
aristocratic swellheads. 



110 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

OPIXIOX OF HERMAN RASTEK. 

The conduct of the delegates and spectators in the Con- 
vention was, in one word, American; with tliat everything 
is said. No personal altercations, no twitting, no insinua- 
tions; everywhere good cheer, pleasantness, and a disposi- 
tion to oblige predominated. But then came the outbursts 
of real or artificial enthusiasm, poured forth with such tre- 
mendous elementary strength, that would place the demo- 
niac yells of the Comanche Indians and the bowlings ot the 
Zulu-Caffirs by far in the shade! "Whoever did not witness 
the proceedings of the ConveVition on the fourth day of its 
session cannot even have an approaching conception of the 
noise and wild enthusiasm which prevailed during that day 
from early morn until late at night. 

A stranger, unaware of the proceedings in the hall, 
might have been induced to believe that pandemonium had 
broken loose, or that all the lunatic asylums in the country 
had emptied their contents into the Exposition Building. 

Among the delegates, although determined in their oppo- 
sition and in the promotion of their choice's interests, 
nothing but pleasantness and affability was perceptible. 
During the whole time of the six days' proceedings not a 
word was uttered which could be torture(f into a direct in- 
sult, and not a single serious dispute took place among 
them as well as among all this vast concourse of excited 
and enthusiastic men. In this respect tlie conduct of the 
Americans in their mass-meetings and gatherings cannot 
be enough praised and extolled, — more particularly so when 
we consider the behavior of the French, the Germans, 
Italians, and Poles on similar occasions. 

Any Convention of the importance and magnitude of 
that which has just adjourned in Chicago, held in France, 
would undoubtedly have caused hundreds of personal con- 
flicts and duels. Such a sudden readiness and submissive- 



THE NOMINATION. 117 

ness to accept an unexpected result as a finality as is 
•exhibited by Americans after their Conventions we look for 
in vain among all other civilized nations. 



A Garfield Nominatioa Joke. 

An hour or so after the latest and last from the Chicago 
nomination, a policeman on Kandolph street halted at 
the door of a saloon and asked the proprietor how he liked 
the nomination. 

" I doan' care for bolitics any more," was the reply. 

" Why, what's the matter ? You were greatly excited 
yesterday." 

" If I vhas den I vhas a fool. Yhen dot first pallot vhas 
daken I set up der peer for de Grant crowd, for 1 likes to 
fihtand vhell mit der poys." 

" Yes." 

" Den a pig crowdt rushes in here und yells out dot Jim 
Plaine vhas de coming man, und I hand out der cigars, for 
niein poy vhants a blace in der Gustom-house oof Jim 
Plaine vhas Bresident." 

" Yes, I see." 

" Vhell, pooty soon comes mein brudder in und says. I 
vhas a fool, for dot feller Sherman would git all der votes 
pooty queek. I tinks ofl" Sherman gits it mein poy haf a 
blace in der Post-oftice sure, und I calls in der poys und 
dells 'em to trink to my gandidate." 

" Just so." 

" I feels goot vhen I goes to bedt, but early in der mom- 
ings some Aldermans come roundt here und says: ' Shake, 
tout pe a fool. Edmunds ish der man who vhill knock 'em 
all to pieces,' und I dells efery pody I vhas an Edmundts, 
und I pet ten dollars he vhas voted in. Dis forenoon mein 



112 



8T0RIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 



poy vhas for Grant, mein brudder vhas for Shennaii nnd 
1 vhas for Blaine, und vhere pe dose live kegs of lager dot 
1 hadt dis morning? Vlien I goes home mein vhrow she 
saidt I vhas zwei fools, nnd I locks up der saloon nnd goes 
to bedt." 

" Well, have you heard who was nominated? " 

"Mein." 

« It was Garfield." 

"Garfeel? Py Sheorge! I dreats avay seven kegs of 
lager und two poxes of cigars, und it vhas Garfeel! Wheel, 
dot ends me oop. If I efer haf some more to do mit boli- 
ticks, den I am as grazy as bedtbugs. Garfeel! Yhell — 
vhell. Vhat a fool I vhas dot I save not mein peer und 
make a zure blace for mein poy mit Garfeel! " 




MISCELLANEOUS. 



Who Is Geueral Garfield? 

The first and superficial answer is, that he is tlie 
Kepublican leader in the popular branch of Congress, 
where he has served conspicuously for seventeen years^ and 
that he is Senater elect from the State ot Ohio— two 
eminent stations, which, together with the Presidential 
nomination, distinguish him by an unexampled combination 
of civic honors. Reaching behind this Congressional 
experience, he was an enthusiastic volunteer in the Union 
Army. Before his military service he was for one brief 
term a member of the Senate of Ohio. This carries him 
back to the beginning of his public career, to a time when 
28 years of age he was a school-teacher in a little village 
on the Western reserve, in the neighborliood of tlie hamlet 
where he was born. 

lie came of a family of yeomen. When he was left an 
orphan in the cradle by his father's death his mother 
struggled with poverty to educate him for loftier pursuits 
than those of his ancestors, and the boy bravely seconded 
her efforts. The slow and scanty savings of labor as a 
canal boatman and a carpenter provided him means for a 
liberal ed ication, and at the mature age of 25 he wa& 
graduated from a New England college in 1S5C, the same 

113 8 



114 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

year in which the Republican party set its first Presidential 
ticket in tlie field. 

This is an honorable record — as characteristic as 
Abraham Lincoln's of the aspirations and opportunities of 
life in our republic; but its recital does not touch the core 
of our question. The mere outline of a man's experience 
is not a satisfactory reply to an inquiry what manner of 
man that experience has left hitn. Answering the question 
in this deeper sense, Gen. Garfield is a typical repre- 
sentative of the civilization of New England removed into 
the West, where it has grown greater and ranker than 
it flourishes at home, as a New England wild flower might 
if trans])lanted from its rocky pasture into the rich soil of 
the prairie. 

When Sir Charles Dilke wrote a book upon America 
a few years ago he styled it the "Greater Britain," In the 
same spirit that broad reach of the Northwestern territory, 
which begins at the Valley of the Gennesee, and, after 
crossing the Westei*n Reserve, spreads out into an area 
encompassing the great lakes, might well be styled the 
"Greater New England." The leaven of its first settlers 
pervades it, tempered, but not dissipated, by space and 
time, and from these settlers Gen. Garfield descended, 
bearing among his own names a Biblical patronymic, 
which, like Lincoln's, betokens his Puritan descent from 
a New England ancestry. 

Applying this key to his public career, the American 
people can fairly interpret its past, and conjecture its 
future. It explains the alliance of his fortunes with the 
Republican party; the ardor with which he has assisted in 
the abolition of slavery, and in the distinctive political 
measures which resulted from that event; the courag-e with 
which he always has antagonized the "Ohio idea" of 
financial legislation; the hesitation with which he has 



MISCELLANEOUS. 115 

opposed his own liberal convictions concerning economic 
questions to the predominant opinions of liis political associ- 
ates; and the scholarly tastes which have impelled him to 
serve upon Congressional committees on education and the 
census, and as a regent of the Smithsonian Institute with 
no less zeal than he has applied himself to the business of 
the committees on Military Affairs, Banking, and the Cur- 
rency and Appropriations, of all of w^liich he has been 
successively Chairman. It dejfines also the respectable 
simplicity of his private life. 



Dying Words of Gen. Garfield's Father— He Leaves His Four Children in Care 

of His Wife. 

Gen. Garfield's mother, a woman of wonderful intelli- 
o-ence and highly endowed by nature, was wedded to a man 
of the most generous impulses and largeness of soul, and 
together they sought their fortunes in the woods of Orange, 
Cuyahoga County, O. 

To this couple were born four children, James Abram 
being the last. When the youngest son was only two 
years old, his father, over-worked and weary from the labor 
of saving his wheat crop from a fire which threatened its 
destruction, sat in a draft of wind, and contracted a violent 
sore throat. A quack doctor of the time applied a blister, 
which caused him to choke to death. Vigorous and hearty 
in all his frame, in his dying moments he said to his 
beloved wife : 

'^ I have planted four saplings in these woods. I must 
now leave them to your care." 

Then, taking a last look out upon his farm, and calling 
his oxen by name, he died. 



lie STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

Garfield's Life in Hiram Sketched by President Hinsdale, of Hiram Collcge- 
— An Interesting History. 

"Garfield's life in Hiram," says Presid»mt TIin!?dale, 
"may be divided into four parts: P^irst, student period; 
second, student and teacher; third, teacher, and, fourth^ 
citizen period, I was not in Hiram when Garfield came 
here, but he came in 1851. His name first tq^pears in the 
catalogue of that year, 'James A. Garfield, (/uviihoga 
county.' It appears the same way next year, liut never ap- 
pears again as the name of a student. In the catalogue of 
1853 it appears in the list of instructors as 'Teacher in the 
English Department and Ancient Languages.' He began 
to teach when he had been here about a year, and continued 
to teach, at the same time carrying on his own studies, until 
he went to Williams College in 1854. Previous to going 
to Williams his name appears only once as instructor. 

The student period, then, may be said to have lat^ted one 
year, and student and teacher period two years. He en- 
tered the junior class at Williams College in 1854, and 
graduated in 1856, dividing the highest honors with one of 
his classmates. He returned to Hiram in the fall of 1856, 
where he had just been elected a teacher of ancient lang- 
uages and literature. He occupied this position one year, 
until, on retirement of Mr. A. 8. Hayden, he became tjie 
head of the institution. The school was then called the 
Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, and did not become 
Hiram College until 1865, so that Garfield was never Pres- 
ident of Hiram College, as has been stated, but >vas Princi- 
pal of the Institute, in active duty, from June, 1857, U> Sep- 
tember, 1861. When he became the head of the institu- 
tution he was 26 years old. 

The teacher period of his life then covers four years. He 
entered the army in August, 1861, taking bodily his classes 
in history, Latin, etc., with him into the field. At this 



MISCELLANEOUS. \\1 

tinio liis active conneetion with tlie institution ceased; but 
so reluctant was the J)oard of Trustees to part with hia 
name that he continued nominally a Principal until 1864. 
In the catalogue of the two following years his name ap- 
pears as 'Advising Principal,' and first as a member of the 
Board of Trustees in 1865. 

" In the fall of 1862, at 31 years of age, he was elected to 
Congress, but continued in the army until he took his seat 
in December of the year following. While in the army, 
lie bought this house, which I now own, which is the only 
piece of property Garfield ever owned in Hiram. His 
home continued to be here until he moved to Mentor in 
1877, so that the citizen period of his life may be said to 
reach from 1863 to 1877. 

'' I came to Hiram at the opening of the winter term 
■of 1853-4. I arrived in the evening, and saw nobody until 
next day. That day I went with father to Mr. Hayden, 
then Principal, and in the parlor of the house I first saw 
Garfield. 

" In stature he was what he is now, only not so well 
rounded up. His head was covered with an immense 
6hock of tow-colored hair, which has since darkened. He 
was but 22 years old, and had a decidedly veally appear- 
ance. George Pow, of Mahoning County came*in, and the 
•conyersation turned upon a recent contest of Pow with B 
T'. Watkins on the rightfulness of Christians going to war 
Pow had affirmed this rightfulness under certain circum- 
stances, .and, as I came in, young Garfield said: 'So, 
Brother Pow, you took the gunpowder side, did you?' 
These are the first words I .remember to have ever heard 
Garfield speak. 

"That winter I was a member of one of Garfield's classes 
— a class in arithmetic of 105 members, which he handled 
witli adrairal)le power. The impression which he made 



118 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

upon me then is the same which he made upon everybodj 
then and after. I cannot describe him better tlian to read 
a passaoje from my history of the Delphic Society. Gar- 
field, I should say, was then a member of the Philomathian 
Society, and delivered before it that winter a course of 
lectures on history. But here is the passage : 

"'An old Hiram student, in a private letter, speaks of the 
Philomathians as 'wonderful men,' mentions those he thought 
'master spirits,' and adds: 'Then began to grow up in me an 
admiration and love for Garfield that has never abated, and the 
like of which I have never known. A bow of recognition or a 
single word from him was to me an inspiration. The exact 
parallel or my own experiences, Garfield, you have taught me more 
than any other man, living or dead; and when I recall these early 
days, when I remember that James and I were not the last of the 
boys, proud as I am of your record as a soldier and a statesman, I 
can hardly forgive you for abandoning the academy for the field 
and the forum.' 

" When I read the above passage," continued Hinsdale, 
laying the book down, " before a brilliant audience in the 
chapel four years ago, the cheers with which it was received 
showed that it struck a chord in all hearts. 

•'My real acquaintance with Garfield did not begin until 
the fall of 1856, when he returned from Williams College. 
lie then found me out, drew near to me, and entered into 
all my troubles and difficulties pertaining to questions of 
the future. In a greater or less degree this was true uf his 
relations to his pupils generally. There are hundreds of 
these men and women scattered over the world to-day who 
cannot find language strong enough to express their feeling 
in contemplating Garfield as their old instructor, adviser 
and friend. Since 1856 my relations with him have been 
as close and confidential as they could be with any man, 
and much closer and more confidential than they have been 
with any other man, I think that it would be impossible 
for me to know anybody better than I know him, and I 



MISCELLANEOUS. 119 

know that he possesses all the great elements of character 
in an extraordinary degree. 

" His interest in humanity has always been as broad as 
humanity itself, while Ids lively interest in young men and 
women, especially if they were struggling in narrow cir- 
cumstances to obtain an education, is a characteristic 
known as widely over the world as the footsteps of Hiram 
boys and girls have wandered. 

"The help that he furnished hundreds in the way of 
suggestions, teaching, encouragement, inspiration, and 
stimulus, was most valuable. I have repeatedly said that, 
as regards myself, I am more indebted to him for all that I 
am and for what I have done in the intellectual field thfin 
to any other man that ever lived. 

" His power over students was not so much that of a 
drill-master or disciplinarian as tliat of one who was able 
to inspire and energize young people by his own intellectual 
and moral force." 



An Interesting Reminiscence of Garfield's Youth— A Letter He Wrote 28 
Years ago that Helped to Make a College President, and that 
President Now Reads it to His Students. 

■ President Hinsdale said, at the recent Commencement at 
Hiram College (June, I88O1, that in tlie fall of 1856 he left 
the Eclectic Institute, now Hiram College, in distress of 
mind growing out of his own life-questions. He had 
passed his 19th birthday, and the question .>f the futui-e 
weighed heavily upon his mind. That winter he taught 
district-school. He had already won a friend in Mr. Gar- 
field, then 25 years old, and just out of Williams College. 
Garfield was then teaching in Hiram as Professor of Ancient 
Languages. In his distress of mind Hitisdale wrote Gar- 
field a letter, in which he fully opened up his mind. In 



la* STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

reply he received a letter, wliicli gave liim great help, that 
illustrated some of the points in the morning's lecture. 
This letter, which he liad religiously preserved, might give 
help to some of the young men l^efore him. Besides, there 
was peculiar propriety in his reading it, on account of what 
had taken place the day before in the City of Chicago. He 
(hen proceeded to read from the original — yellow with age, 
and worn with repeated foldings and unfoldings — the fol- 
lowing beautiful letter: 

"IIiRAM, Jan. 15, 1857.— My Dear Brother Bukke: I 
was made glad a iVw days since by the receipt of your 
letter. It was a very acceptable New Year's present, and I 
take great pleasure in responding. You have given a vivid 
picture of a community in which intelligence and morality 
"have been neglected, and I am glad you are disseminating 
the light. Certainly men must have some knowledge in 
order to do right. God first said, 'Let there be light;' 
afterward he said, 'It is very good! ' 

'' I am glad to hear of your success in teaching, but I 
approach Mitli much more interest the consideration ot the 
question you have proposed. Brother mine, it is not a 
question to be discussed in the spirit of debate, but to be 
thouglit over and prayed over as a question ' out of which 
are the issues ol life.' You will agree with me that every 
■one lunst decide and direct his own course in life, and the 
only service friends can afford is to give us the data from 
which we must draw our ow]i conclusion and decide our 
course. Allow me, then, to sit beside you and look over 
the field of lite and see ^\•hat are its aspects. 

" I am not one of those wlio advise everyone to under- 
take the work of a liberal t-dncation. Indeed, I believe 
that in two-thirds of the cases .^ucli advice would be umvise. 
The great body of the j)eo|)le will be, and ought to be 
(intelligent), farmers and mechanics; and in many respects 



MIISCELLANHOUS. 121 

they pass the most independent and happy lives. J>ut God 
has endowed some of His children with desires and capa- 
bilities for a more extended Held of labor and influence, 
and so every life should be shaped according to ' what the 
man hath.' Xow, in reference to yourself, I know you have 
capabilities for occupying positions of liigh and important 
trust in the scenes of active life, and I am sure you will not 
call it flattery in me nor egotism in yourself to say so, 
TelJ me. Burke, do you not feel a spirit stirring within 
you that longs to hioio^ to do, and to dare ; to hjld con- 
verse with the great world of thought, and hold before you 
some high and noble object to which the vigor of your 
mind and the strength of your ai-in may be given? Do you 
not have longings like these, which you breathe to no one. 
and which you feel must be heeded, or you will pfi!s.> 
through life unsatisfied and regretful? I am sure you ha\e 
them, and they will forever cling round your heart till yon 
obey their mandate. They are the voices of that nature, 
Avhich God has given you, and which, when obeyed, will 
bless you and your fellow-men. 

" Now, all this might be true, and yet it might be your 
•duty not to follow that course. If your duty to your father 
or your mother demands that you take another, 1 sliall 
rejoice to see you take that other course. The path of duty 
is where we all ought to walk, be that where it may. But 
I sincerely hope that you will not, without an earnest 
struggle, give up a course of liberal study. Suppose you 
could not begin your study again till after your majority, — 
it wjll not be too late then, but you will gain in many 
respects. You will have more maturity of mind to appre- 
ciate whatever you may study. You may say you will be 
too old to begin the cource. But how could you better 
spend the earlier days of life? We should not measure life 
by the days and moments we pass on earth. 



122 STORIES AND SKETCHES OP GARFIELD. 

" ' The life is measured by the soul's advance — 
The enlargement of its powers— the expanded field 
Where it ranges, till it burns and glows 
With heavenly joy, with high and heavenly hope.' 

" It need be no discouragement tliat you will be obliged 
to hew your own way and pay your own charges. You 
ean go to school two terms of every yeai", and pay your own 
way. 

" I know this, for I did so when teachers' wages were 
much lower than they are now. It is a great truth that 
' Where there is a will, there is a way.' It may be that by- 
and-by your lather would assist you. It may be that even 
now he could let you commence on your resources, so that 
you could begin immediately. Of this 3'ou know, and I 
do not. I need not tell you how glad I should be to assist 
you in your work; but, if you cannot come to Hiram while 
I am here, I shall still hope to hear that you are deter- 
mined to go on as soon as the time will permit. Will you 
not write me your thoughts on this whole subject, and tell 
me your prospects? We are having a very good time in 
the school this winter. Give my love to Roldon and 
Louisa, and believe me always your friend and brother. 

''J. A. Garfiell. 

"P. S. — Miss Booth and Mr. Rhodes send their love to 
you. Henry James was here and made me a good visit a 
few days ago. He and I have talked of going to see you 
this winter. I tear we cannot do it. How far is it from 
here? Burke, was it prophetic that my last word to you 
ended on the picture of the Capitol of Congress? 

''J. A. G*." 

The letter was written on Congress note paper, and the 
sheet was entirely filled, so that the last few words were 
written crosswise; and, as is said by the General, his lust 
word came across the little picture at the upper left-hand 



MISCELLANEOUS. 123 

corner of tlie sheet. "Whether the General means to ask in 
regard to the prophetic significance in his own case, or that 
ol Hinsdale, is not known; but it certainly came true in 
his own case. 



Gen. Garfield's Speech Before the Hiram College Eeunion Association— The 
Commencement Day of 1660 Long to be Remembered. 

Ou this happy occasion, President Hinsdale introduced 
Gen. Garfield as follows: It is with a good deal of satisfac- 
tion and pride that I now introduce to you one into whose 
face most all of you have looked hundreds of times, a fellow 
student with some of you, and a co-worker in the institu- 
tion with others, a teacher of a larger number, a man who 
tor years has been near and dear to us, and whose presence 
here to-day has lifted what otherwise would have been a 
comparatively humble though a very pleasant and enjoyable 
occasion to the i-ank and dignity of a national matter — Gen. 
Garfield. 

Gen. Garfield arose and said : / 

Ladies and Gentlemen: I said that there were two 
chapters in the history of this Institute. You have heard 
the one relating to the founders. They were all pioneers 
of this Western Reserve, or nearly all; they were all men 
of knowledge and great force of character; nearly all not 
men of means, but they planted this little institution. In 
1850 it was a cornfield, with a solid, plain brick building in 
the centre of it, and that was all. Almost all the rest has 
been done by the institution itself. That is the second 
chapter. 

Without a dollar of endowment, without a powerful 
friend anywhere, but with a corps of teachers who were told 
to go on to the ground and see what they could make out 



124 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF (JARFIELD. 

of it, to find their own pay out of the little tuition that 
they could receive. They invited students of their own 
■ spirit to come on the ground and see what they could make 
out of it, and the response has been that many have come, 
and the chief part of the respondents I see in the faces 
around and before me to-day. It was a simple question 
of sinking or swimming for themselves. And I know that 
we are all inclined to be a little claimish over our own. 
We have, perhaps, a right to be, but I do notknow of any 
place, I do not know of any institution that has accom- 
plished more with so little means as has this school on 
Hiram Hill. 

I know of no place where the doctrine of self-help has a 
fuller development, by necessity as well as finally by 
choice, as here on this hill. The doctrine of self-help and 
of force has the chief place among these men and women 
around here. As I said a great many years ago about that, 
the act of Hiram was to throw its young men and women 
overboard and let them try it for themselves, and all those 
men able to get ashore got ashore, and I think we have few 
cases of drowning anywhere. 

Now, I look over these faces and I mark the several 
geological changes remarked by Mr. Atwater so well in his 
address; but in the few cases of change of geological fact 
there is, I find, no fossils. Some are dead and glorified in 
our memories, but those who are not are alive — I think all. 
The teachers and the studens of this school built it up in 
every sense. They made the cornfield into Hiram Campus. 
Those fine groves you see across the road they planted. I 
well remember tlie day when they turned out into the 
woods to find beautiful maples, and brought them in; 
when they raised a little purse to purchase evergreen; 
when each young man, for himself one, and perhaps a 
second for some young lady, if he was in love, planted two 



MISCELLANEOUS. 126 

trees on the campus and tlien named them after himself. 
There are several here to-day who remember Bolen. Bolen 
planted there a tree, and Bolen has planted a tree that has 
a lustre — Bolen was shot through the heart at Winchester. 

There are many here that can go and find the tree that 
you have named after yourself. They are great, strong 
trees to-day, and your names, like your trees, are, I hope, 
growing still. 

I believe outside of or beyond the physical features 
of the place, that there was a stronger pressure ot work to 
the square inch in the boilers that run this establishment 
than any other that I know of, and, as has been so well 
said, that has told all the while with these young men and 
women. The struggle, wherever the uncouth and un- 
tutored farmer boys — a farmer, of course — that came here 
to try themselves and find what kind of people they were. 
Thev came here to go on a voyage of discovery. Your 
discovery was yourselves, in many cases. I hope the 
discovery was a tortune, and the Iriendships then formed 
out of that have bound this group of people longer and 
farther than most an}' other I have known in life. They 
.are scattered all over the United States, in every field 
of activity, and if I had time to name them, the sun would 
tro down before I had finished. 

I believe the rules of this institution limits us to time — 
I think it is said five minutes. I may have overgone it 
already. "We liave so many already that we want to hear 
from, we will all volunteer. We expect now to wrestle 
awhile with the work before us. Some of these boys 
remember the time when I had an exercise that I remem- 
l)er with pleasure. I called a young lad out in a class and 
said, in two min\ites you are to speak to the best ot your 
ability on the following subject (naming it), and give the 
subject and let him wrestle with it. T M-as trying a 



126 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF QARFIEFD. 

•theory, and I believe that wi-estling was a good thing. I 
will not vary the performance save in this. I will call you 
and restrict you to five minutes, and let you select your 
theme about the old days of Hiram. 

Now, we have a grave judge ,in this audience, who 
wandered away from Hiram into the Forty-Second Eegi- 
ment into the South, and, after the victory, stayed there.- I 
will call now, not as a volunteer man, but as a drafted man 
— Judge Clark of Mississippi. 



Garfield's First Eide on the Cars— First Visit to Columbus— First School, 
Etc.— Interesting Reminiscences. 

It was the good fortune of the writer of this to spend the 
first two weeks of the notable campaign of 1877 with Gen. 
Garfield. It was almost evident to the best-informed poli- 
tical calculator that the Kepublicans must be defeated that 
year. Fate was against them, and whatever herculean 
efforts might be made could only be in vain. The excuse 
was this and that, but the fact was a conglomeration ot ad- 
verse circumstances which no one could successfully con- 
tend against. 

The campaign was opened on a bright day in early 
autunm, under the beautiful elms and maples of that de- 
lightful old university town of Athens. Hon. Stanley 
Matthews, recently elected United States Senator, Judge 
West, candidate for Governor, and Gen. Garfield, together 
with sevei'al lesser lights in the party, were present and 
made speeches. It was an occasion full of importance, and 
was carefully reported in the daily press of the entire 
country. 

The meeting was held on Saturday afternoon, and the 
General found it necessary to remain in the town over Sun- 
day. A-fter taking a stroll about the town dnring the fore- 



MISCELLANEOUS. 127 

noon^ and reading his usual amount from some popular 
volume, the General, later -in the daji, in the presence of 
Capt. C. E. Henry and myself, said: 

" Many interesting reminiscences which it is very diffi- 
cult for me to express have run through my mind during 
the past twenty-four hours. While speaking from the 
stand in the college campus, yesterday, I could not refrain 
from casting my eyes up to a certain window in the main 
building which opens into a room where I spent a night, 
gome twenty-five years ago, in the company of my cousin 
Ellis Ballou, who was a student here. 

"I had come all the way from our home in Cuyahoga 
county with my mother. It had been an eventful journey 
to me. 

'• I had rode for the first time on the cars." 

" I had been for the first time to the capital, and been 
shown with my mother through the halls of the State 
Plonse. 

" Hon. Gamaliel Kent was the Representative from 
Geauga county, and he showed us about. From there we 
come on to Athens, in the immediate vicinity of which 
town resided my mother's relatives. 

"That winter I taught my first school in a log house in 
this vicinity. 

" I dug the coal which was burned during the winter 
from the bank in the rear of the house, and worked for, I 
think, $10 per month. It was an eventful winter for me. 
I had some scholars who had been reported as somewhat 
hard, but I think that I succeeded reasonably well in keep- 
ing order." 

" Was this before or after your canal experience?" 

" It was after that, some time. I had given up all idea 
of a life on the canal at that time, but I did expect to go 
on the sea even then." 



128 UTORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

At tliis early period the books which the young Geijeral 
mostly read were tales of the sea. These were the only 
fitones that could be easily obtained. 

The General says that he most vividly remembers the 
"Pirate's Own Book," and the impression which it made 
lived with him for years. lie di'eamed of an impossible 
career on the ocean. 

The great statesman was a good reader at 3 years old, and 
was remarkable f.)r the faculty which he exhibited for re- 
taining almost verbatim the contents of the volumes which 
he perused. It is reported by the good people of the vicin- 
ity, who were boys with the General, that he often annoyed 
teachers of somewhat limited education by the numberlesa 
questions which he asked them. 



Garfield's Extra Sessioa Speech— Turning on the Light. 

General Garfield, at the extra session of Congress in 
1879, turned a iiood of the fierce light of history upon the 
disgraceful record of the Democratic ]iarty, and then made 
clear that their attitude at that time in threatening to stop 
the supplies of the Government unless their schemes look- 
ing to the removal of the safeguards that surround the 
ballot-box were permitted was as unpatriotic and pestiferous 
as their attitude during the war. It) was in the course of 
this great effort that he spoke the following words, which 
indicate the intense patriotic earnestness and the frank fear- 
lessness of the man: 

I desire to ask the forbearance of the gentlemen on the 
other side for remarks I dislike to make, lor they will bear 
witness that I have in many ways shown my desire that the 
wounds of the war should be healed, and that the grass 
that God plants over the graves of our dead may signalize 



miscellaneous':;. 129 

the return of the Sprin^>- of friendship and pence between 
all parts of the country. But I am compelled by the 
necessity of the situation to lefer for a moment to a chapter 
of hLstorv. 

The last act of the Democratic domination in this house, 
eighteen years ago, "was stirring and dramatic, but it was 
heroic ami whole-sor.led. Then the Democratic party said: 
'' If you elect your man as President of the United States 
we will ^hoot your Union to death." 

And the people of this country, not willing to be 
coerced, but beiievii^g they had a right 1o vote for Abraham 
Lincoln if they chose, did elect him lawfully as President^ 
and then your leaders, in control of the majority of the 
other wing of this Capitol, did the heroic thing of with- 
drawing from their seats, and your Kepresentatives with- 
drew from their seats and fluno- down to us the erajre of 
mortal battle. We called it rebellion, but we admitted 
that it was honorable, that it was courageous, and that it 
was noble to give us the fell gage of battle, and fight it out 
in the open field. 

Tiiat conflict, and what followed, we all know too well ; 
and to-day, after eighteen years, the book of your domina- 
tion is opened where you turned down your leaves in 1860, 
and you are signalizin-g your return to power by reading 
the second chapter (not this time an heroic one) that de- 
clares that if \re do not let you daih a statute out of the 
book you will not shoot the Union to death as in the first 
chapter — but stnrve it to death by refusing the necessary 
appropriations. 

You, gentlemen, have it in your po^ver to kill it by this 
movement. You have it in your power, by withholding 
these two bills, to smite the nerve centers of our-Constitu- 
tion to the stillness of death; and you have declared your ' 
purpose to do it if you cannot break down the elements 



130 STORTJSS AND SKEICHES OF GARFIELD. 

ot free consent that, up to this time, have always ruled in 
the Government. 

It is unnecessary to say that the sentences quoted were 
burned into the memories of the Democracy. In the light 
of Garfield's unsparing but candid arraignment they were 
forced to see along with the rest of the people that their 
party, according to the measure of its opportunity, was as 
much a foe to tlie safety and prosperity of the American 
Union as the Democracy of the war. 



Aneedote of Gen. Garfield at Morfreesboro, lUostrating a Noble Trait of His 

Character. 

The following reminiscence throws additional light on 
noble character of Garfield : 

Gareschi, Rosecrans's Chief of Staff, was killed the first 
day of the tight at Mui-f'reesboro. A solid shot left his 
body headless. Old Rosey, as he was familiarly and affec- 
tionately called by the boys, who was at Garashee's side 
when the fatal shot took effect, glanced at the faithful 
officer's corpse, and exclaiming " poor fellow," called out : 
" Scatter, gentlemen, scatter." 

The order was obeyed by staff and orderlies with more 
than alacrity, as the enemy liad us in blank range of a well- 
manned battery, the shot flying thick and fast, without any 
apparent respect of persons. A few days after, says 
Thomas Daughberty, who tells this story, I do not remem- 
ber how many, but it was after we had got into quarters in 
the town of Murfreesboro, Garfield joined us, to take the 
dead man, Gareschi's place as Chief of Stafi'. 

We boys thought he was a perfect success, and as an 
illustration of his kindness of heart, a virtue not often 
practiced by army officers in the field, toward subordinates 
at least, I give you this little story : 



MISCELLANEOUS^. 131 

One niglit, very late, tne dojs being rolled in their 
blankets on the hall floor asleep, and I at my post, sitting 
in a chair at the Commanding General's door, awaiting 
orders to be taken to their destination by my then sleeping 
comrades ; the light but a tallow candle stuck in a sardine 
box; I, with chair tilted against the wall, had fallen asleep 
too, when Gen. Gariield, the new Chief of Stafi^, emerged 
from the headquarter-room qnickly. Not noticing my 
-extended limbs, he tripped over them and dropped to hands 
and knees on the floor. As he was no light weight, even 
then tlie fall was not easy. 

Afli-ighted, I jumped to my feet, stood at attention, and, 
as the General arose, saluted, expecting nothing else tlian 
to be cuffed, and probably kicked, too, from one end of tlie 
hall to the other. But, to my astonishment, he kindly and 
■quietly said: " Excuse me. Sergeant." I not only excused 
him, but, with all our little command, to whom the inci 
dent was told, revered him. 



The First Garfield Club— Organized by the Students at Williamstown, IXass 
Every ballot at the Chicago Convention was announced 
immediately to a large and expectant crowd at Williams 
College (Gen. Garfield is a graduate of Williams College) 
as fast as received. Wlien the news came that a son 
of Williams College was nominated, the crowd went wild. 
The students, headed by a man carrying the American 
flag, marched to the President's house, where Dr. Chad- 
bourn made a speech. A mass meeting was then held by 
the students in Alumni Hall, and a grand ratification 
meeting was appointed. A brass band was engaged, 
together with prominent speakers of Berkshire County. A 
Garfield Club was organized also, and a grand procession 
planned, all before 2:30 p. m. The College took a holiday 
in honor of the nomination, and has the honor of organizing 
the first Garfield Club in the country. 



132 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

Dignity of American Citizcnship-Garfield's Eloquent Spceoh in Washingtoa 
After His Nooiination, Delivered June 16th, 1880. 

Fellow-Citizens: While I have looked upon this great 
array, I believe I have gotten a new idea of the majesty 
of the American peoj^le. 

l\lien I reflect th?t wherever vou find the sovereign 
power, every reverent h^art on ea)-t:li boN/s before it, p^ni 
when I remember that here, for a hundred yeai-s, we have 
denied the sovereignty of an 3'^ man, and in place of it we 
have asserted the sovereignty of all in place of one, 1 see 
before so vast a concourse that it is easy for me to imagine 
that the rest of the American people are gathered here 
to-night; and, if they were all here, every man would stand 
uncovered and in unsandaled feet in the presence of the 
majesty of the only sovereign power in this Government 
under Almighty God ; and, therefore, to tliis great 
audience I pay the respectful homage that in part belongs 
to the sovereignty of the people. 

I thank you for this great and glorious demonstration. I 
am not for one moment misled into believing that it refers 
to so poor a thing as any one of our number. 1 know it 
means your reverence to your Government, your reverence 
for its laws, your reverence for its instituti(jns, and your 
compliment to one who is placed for a moment in relations 
to you of peculiar importance. For all these reasons I 
thank you. 

I cannot at this time utter a word on the sul)jeet (,>f 
general politics. I would not nuir the cordiality of tliis 
welcome, to which to some extent all are gathere^l, by any 
reference except to the present moment a'ul its significance. 

But I wish to say that a hirge poriion of this assemblage 
to-night are my comrades in tlie late "war for tlie Union. 
For them I can speak with entiie propriety, find c;),a say 
that these very streets heard the measured tread of your 



MISCELLANEOUS. ■ 133 

disciplined feet years ago, when tlie imperiled Republic 
needed your hands and your hearts to save it, and you came 
hack with your numbers decimated, but those you lett 
behind were immortal and gloriiied heroes forever, and 
those you brought back came carrying under tattered ban- 
ners and in bronzed hands the ark of the, covenant of youi 
Republic in safety out of the bloody baptism of the war, 
imd you brought it in safety to be Faved forever by your 
valor and the wisdom of your brethren who were at honie, 
and by this you were again added to the civil army of the 

'Tl'reetyou, comrades and fellow-soldiers, and the great 
body of 'distinguished citizens wb.o are gathered here 
to-night, who are the strong stay and support of business, 
.01 prosperity, of peace, of civic order, and the glory of the 
Eepublic, and I thank you ibr your welcome to-night, it 
was said in a welcome to one who came to England to be a 
part of her glory, and all the nation spoke when it said: 
Kormans, and Saxons, and Danes are we, 
But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee. 
And we say to-night of all the nations, of all the people 
soldiers and civilians, there is one name that welds us all 
into one. It is the name of an American under the Union 
and under the glory of the flag that leads us to victory and 
to peace. 



" The Member Trom New York." 

Gen Garfield in liis school days used to take the part of 
"the member from .New York" in the miniature House of 
€oncn-e.s which his elocution class had formed^itselt into. 
He Ts said to liave enjoyed this exceedingly, and his oratory 
excelled that of all the others. 



134 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF QARFIEFD. 

The Canal Story as Told by the Man Who Employed Young Garfield to Drive- 
on the Tow Path. 

The gentleman who emjiloyed young Garfield to drive on 
the " Tow path " is still living, and resides in Jersey City. 
His name is Jonathan Myers. He gives the following full 
account of "Jim Garfield's" canal labors: 

" He was a driver for me on the Ohio Canal. I have 
watched his career ever since he left me, and have felt very 
much interested in him, and gratified to see what he has 
achieved. 

The first time he ran for the Legislature of Ohio he was 
in my district, and I voted for him. After that I moved 
East, and that is the only time I ever voted for him. When 
he left me he did not 'boat' any more. 

It is a mistake about his ever having been a steersman. 
Jle was not large enough for a steersman. "When he w^as 
in my employ he was not more than 13 years of age. 

I remember when he applied to me for a job on my 
boat. He was a stout, healthy boy, and his frank, open 
countenance impressed me so much that I at once employed 
him. He was always full of fun, and exceedingly good 
natured. I never saw him mad. He was with me about 
three months. 

He was always very attentive to his business. He was 
also a great boy to read. If he was not busy he was always 
reading. I scarcely ever saw him idle. One day, as we 
were going up the canal, he came to me and said he would 
like to get a place where he could work and attend school. 

I knew of a doctor by the name of Robinson who lived 
near me, who was in need of a boy to attend his horse and 
do chores about his place. I told " Jim " he had better go 
up and see the Doctor, and if he had not got a boy he had 
better get the place. I disliked to part with him, but 
I saw he was too intelligent a lad to be driving a canal-boat. 



I 



MISCELLANEOUS. 135 

He went up, and the Doctor ' froze ' to liim at once. The 
Doctor was what you might call a minister. He was a 
CampbeUite, and a very good man indeed. 

During the first winter "Jim" was with the Doctor he 
got converted, and after he got converted they " froze " to 
him tighter than ever. When spring came, " Jim " wanted 
to get some work to enable him to buy some clothes, and 
he spoke to the Doctor about it. The Doctor told him he 
must not leave school — that he must go through now. 
"Jim "said: 

" Doctor, but I haven't got any money." The Doctor 
told him that was all right— that he would stand behind 
him. 

I remember that he was a very poor boy, and 
that 1 was very favorably impressed with him. These 
canal boys were generally a &hiii-lbj:.o i^i. v^a fv^iluvvs, and it 
was hard work to get a good boy. Our boats were different 
then from what they are now. We used to have them 
fitted up nicely to carry passengers as well as freight. My 
wife used to be on the boat with me, and she thought a 
good deal of " Jim." 

The great difficulty we had with the drivers on our boats 
was that they would lie, but if you got anything from 
" Jim " you could always rely on it. I never caught him 
in a lie while he was with me. He was getting $10 a 
month and his board, and that was considered very big 
wa<res. He was born in Orange, Cuyahoga County, O. He 
came to me as any other boy to hire out. 



The Turning Point in Gai-field's Life, and How It Happened. 

Tlie following anecdote concerning Garfield's early life 
Bhows a critical period of tlie boy's experience: . 

Garfield was then a greo:i. awkward boy of 16, and was 



136 STORIES AND SXmrJiIES OF OaRFIELD. 

revolving in his mind tlie feasibility of taking a conrse of 
liberal study. He laiew tliat Dr. Robinson was in to-vm, 
and had seen him at his mothers house, and had coniidenco 
in his judgment. He called arouiid, therefore, at tho 
President's house, and asked for Dr.Kobinson. The Doctor 
was at his dinner, but soon finished, and came out to see 
what his joung friend ^'anted. 

" I want to see jou alone," said Garfield. 

""Wlio are jou?" asked the gruff but kind-hearted 
Doctor. 

"My name is James Garfield, from Irolon," replied the 
latter. 

"Oh! I know your mother, and knew you when yon 
were a babe in arms; but you had outgrown my laiowledge. 
I am glad to see you." 

The young man led the way toward a secluded spot on 
the south side of Hiram Hill; and, as they proceeded, the 
Doctor took a good look at his companion. He was a 
yoimg man quite shabbily dressed, with coarse satinet 
pantaloons, wliich were far outgrown, and did not reach 
more than half-way down his cowhide boot-tops. His vest 
did not meet the waistband of his pants, and his arms 
reached far out through the sleeves of his ccat. His head 
was clothed with a coarse wool liat, which had also seen 
much wear, and slouched unon his head. 

"He was wonderfully awk^vard," said the good Doctor 
(who tells this story), " and had a sort of independent, go-as- 
you-please gait. At length we reached a spot that was 
covered with papaw bushes, and we took a seat on a log. 
After a little hesitation the young man said: 

" You are a physician, and know the fibre that is in men. 
Examine me and tell me with the utmost frankness wlietlior 
I had better take a course of lil^eral study. [ am con- 
templating doing so. My desire is in that direction. But, 



MISCELLANEOUS. 187 

if I am to make a failure ofii, or practically so, I do not 
desire to begin. If jou advise me not to do so, I shall feel 
content." 

" I felt that I was on my sacred honor, and the young 
man looked as though he felt himself on trial. I had had 
considerable ex]:)erience as a physician, but here was a case 
much different from any other I had ever had. I felt it 
must be handled with great care. 

I examined his head, and saw that there was a mag- 
nificent brain there. I sounded his lungs, and found that 
they were strong and capable of making good blood. I 
felt his pulse, and saw tliat there was an engine capable of 
sending the blood up to the head to feed the brain. I had 
seen many strong physical systems, with warm feet, but 
cold, sluggish brain; and those who possessed such systems 
would simply sit around and doze. Therefore I was 
anxious to know about the kind of an engine to run that 
delicate machine, the brain. At the end of a fifteen- 
minutes' careful examination of this kind, we rose, and I 
said: 'Go on, follow the leadings of your ambition, and 
ever after I am your friend. You have the brain of a 
Webster, and you have the physical proportions that will 
back you in the most herculean efforts. All you need to 
do is to work. "Work hard — do not be afraid of over- 
working — and you will make your mark.'" 

The Doctor and the General visited the spot made thus 
sacred as the witness of the turning point in Garfield's 
life, on the day of the recent Hiram commencement. 

" I invited the General to come to my house in Bedford, 
in order that I might talk the matter over more fully with 
him ; and in a short time he did so. The General has often 
told me that the conversation gave him confidence in him- 
self, which he had never had before, and he went on with 
his course, and, as is already known, won for himself the 
highest honors of his class, and of the world at large. 



188 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

Th« Metliods and Habits of Garfield While a Teacher -How He Flared With 
the Boys, Shook Hands, Lectured, Etc. 

The Rev. J. L. Darsie, of Danbury, Conu., was one of 
Garfield's pupils in his school days. He thus describes the 
habits and methods of Professor Garfield: 

" I attended school at the Western Reserve Eclectic In- 
stitute when Garfield was Principal, and I recall viuidly 
Gen. Garfield's method of teaching. 

" He took very kindly to me, and assisted me in various 
ways, because I was poor and was janitor of the buildings, 
and swept them out in the morning and built the fires, as 
he had done only six years before, when he was a pupil at 
the same school. 

He was full of animal spirits, and he used to run out on 
the green almost every day and play cricket with us. He 
was a tall, strong man, but dreadfully awkward. Every 
now and then he would get a hit on the nose, and he muflfed 
his ball and lost his hat as a regular thing. 

He was left-handed, too, and that made him seem all the 
clumsier. But he was most powerful and very quick, and 
it was easy for us to understand how it was that he had ac- 
quired the reputation of whipping all the other mule driv- 
ers on the canal, and of making himself the hero of that 
thoroughtare when he followed its tow-path ten years 
earlier. 

No matter how old the pupils were, Garfield always 
Ciilled us by our first names, and kept himself on the most 
tainiliar terms with all. He played with us freely, scufiled 
with us sometimes, walked with us in walking too and fro, 
and we treated him out of the class room just about as we 
did one another. Yet he was a most strict disciplinarian,, 
and enforced the rules like a martinet. 

He combined an afi:ectionate and confiding manner with 
a respect for order in a most succe&Dful manner. If he 
wanted to speak to a pupil, either for reproof or approba- 



MISCELLANEOUS. 139 

tion, he would generally manage to get one arm around 
Lira and draw him up close to him.. 

lie had a peculiar way of shaking hands, too, giving a 
twist to your arm and drawing you right up to him. This 
sympathetic manner has helped him to advancement. 
When I was a janitor he used sometimes to stop me and 
ask my opinion about this and that, as if seriously advising 
with me, I can see now that my opinion could not have 
been of any value, and that he probably asked me partly to 
increase my self respect, and partly to show me that he felt 
an interest in me. I certainly was his friend all the firmer 
for it. 

I remember once asking him what was the best way to 
pursue a certain study, and he said: 

"Use several text-books. Get the views of different 
authors as you advance. In that way you can plow a 
broader furrow, I always study in that way." He tried 
hard to teach us to observe carefully and accurately. He 
broke out one day with: 

" Henry, how many posts are there under the building 
downstairs?" Henry expressed his opinion, and the ques- 
tion went around the class, hardly one getting it right. 

He was the keenest observer I ever saw. I think he no- 
ticed and numbered every button on our coats. 

A friend of mine was walking with him through Cleve- 
land one day when Garfield stopped and darted down a 
cellarway, asking his companion to follow, and briefly 
pausing to explain himself. The sign " Saws and Files " 
was over the door, and in the depths was heard a regular 
clicking sound. 

" I think this fellow is cutting files," said he, " and I 
have never seen a file cut." Down they went, and, sure 
enough, there was a man recutting an old file, and they 
stayed ten minutes and found out all about the process. 



140 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF OARFTELD. 

The Way Garfield Got His Military Education— Usingp Poles, Blocks, and 
Grains of Coffee for Drill Purposes. 

It is a well-kiiovvn fact that Gen. Garfield never had any 
military education previous to his taking command of the 
Forty-second Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, But 
the tliorongh disposition which he had cultivated, both as 
student and teacher, was with him here. 

He purchased at the first opportunity a copy of some 
book on military tactics, and immediately inaugurated an 
entirely original method of learning the movements of 
bodies of men. 

He prepared a large number of blocks, each representing 
columns of soldiers, and then went through with all the 
various movements described in the books, often working 
at the various problems until nearly morning. 

When he had quite well mastered the rudiments in this 
way, he began to drill his officers by means of skeleton 
companies, as he called them. He had prepared long poles, 
and, giving the ends of these into the hands of the men 
who were being instructed, the marches, counter-marches 
and various parades would be gone through with wonderful 
accuracy and dispatch. 

" I hare carried poles in this way many times," said 
Capt. C. E. Henry, one of his old officers, " and, if I do say 
60, we learned the movements as fast as the men of any 
other regiment, even though the others might have been 
presided over by West Point officers. 

" Finally, he mislaid his blocks, and adopted grains of 
coffee, or corn, and still carried on his military maneuvers. 

" I have heard West Point officers say that he was as 
thorough as any officer they ever saw in his knowledge of 
the common principles of military affairs. I never knew 
him to make a mistake in giving an order, or to hesitate i^ 
giving it." 



MISCELLANEOUS. 141 

The General TaWng His Stand on FaglUve Sln,vef-A Story of the War. 

A member of Gen. Sherman's staff is aafhority for the 
following incident, whicli is related as nearly us pc^ssible in 
his words: 

"One day I noticed a fugitive slave come rushing into 
camp with a bloody head, and apjmrently frightened almost 
to death. He had only passed my tent a moment v;hen a 
regular bnlly of a fellow came riding np, ami, with a volley 
of oaths, began to ask after his ' nigger.' 

" Gen. Garfield was not present, and he passed on to the 
division-commander. This division -commander was a sym- 
pathizer with the theory that fugitives should be returned 
to their masters, and that the Union soldiers should bo 
made the instruments for returning them. He accordingly 
wrote a mandatory order to Gen. Garfield, in whose com, 
mand the darky Wcis su])posed to be hiding, telling him to 
hunt out and deliver over the property of the outraged 
citizen. 

" 1 stated the case as fully as I could to Gen, Garfield 
before handing him the order, but did not color ray state- 
ment in any way. He took the order, and deliberately 
wrote on it the following indorsement: 

"'I respectfully, but positively, decline to allow my 
command to search for, or deliver uj), any fugitive slaves. 
I conceive that they are here for quite another purpose. 
Tlie command is open, and no obstacles will be placed in 
the way of the search.' 

" I re^d the indorsement, and was frightened. I expected 
that, if returned, the result would be tl at the Genei-al would 
be court-martialed. I told hiui my fears. He simply 
replied: 

" 'The matter may as well be tested first as last. Right 
is right, and I do not propose to mince matters at all. My 
soldiers are here for far other purposes than hunting and 
returning fugitive slaves." 



142 STOJilES AND ^^K ETCHES OF ARE IF LB. 

Garfield's Letter Accepting the Republican Nomination for President. 

Gen. Garfield forwarded to Senator Hoar, of Massachu- 
setts, Chairman of Committee, the following letter of ac- 
ceptance of the nomination tendered him by the Republican 
National Convention: 

" Mentor, O., July 10, 1880.— Dear Sir: On the even- 
ing of the 8th of June last, I had the honor to receive from 
you, in the presence of the Committee of which you were 
Chairman, the official announcement that the iiepublican 
National Convention at Chicago had that day nominated 
me as their candidate for the President of the United 
States. I accept the nomination with gratitude for the 
confidence it implies, and with a deep sense of the respon- 
sibilities it imposes. 1 cordially indorse the principles set 
forth in the platform adopted by the Convention, On 
nearly all the subjects of which it treated my opinions are 
on record among the published proceedings of Congress. 

1 venture, however, to make special mention of some of 
the principal tojiics which are likely to become subjects of 
discussion, without reviewing the controversies which have 
been settled during the last twenty years, and with no pur- 
pose or wish to revive the passions of the late war. 

STATE supremacy. 

It should be said that, while the Republicans fully 
recognize and will strenuously defend all the rights retained 
by the people, and all the rights reserved to the States, they 
regret the pernicious doctrine of State supremacy, which so 
long crippled the functions of the national government, and 
at one time brought the Union very near to destruction. 
They insist that the United States is a nation, with ample 
powers of self-preservation; that its Constitution and the 
laws made in pursuance thereof " are the supreme law of 
the land;" that the right of the nation to determine the 



MISCELLANEOUS. 143 

rnethod by which the Legislature shall be created cannot be 
surrendered without abdicating one of the fundamental 
powers of government; that the national laws relating to 
the election of Representatives in Congress shall neither be 
violated nor evaded; that every elector shall be permitted 
freely, and without intimidation, to cast his lawful vote at 
6uch election, and have it honestly counted; and that the 
potency of his vote shall not be destroyed by the fraudu- 
lent vote ot any other person. 

NATIONAL WELL-BEING. 

The best thoughts and energies of our people should be 
directed to those great questions ot national well-being, in 
wdiich all have a common interest. Such efforts will soonest 
restore to perfect peace those who were lately in arms 
against each other; for justice and good-will will outlast 
passion. But it is certain the wounds of the war cannot be 
completely healed, and the spirit ot brotherhood cannot 
pervade the whole country, until every citizen — rich or 
poor, white or black — is secure in the free and equal en- 
joyment ot every civil and political right guaranteed by the 
constitution and the laws. Wherever the enjoyment of 
these rights is not assured discontent will prevail, immi- 
gration will cease, and the social and industrial forces will 
continue to be disturbed by the migration of the laborers 
and the consequent diminution (ff prosperity. The na- 
tional government should exercise all its constitutional 
authority to put an end to these evils; for all the people and 
all the States are members of one body, and no member 
can suffer without injury to all. 

The most serious evils which now afflict the South arise 
from the fact that there is not such freedom and toleration 
of political opinion and action that the minority party can 
exercise an effective and wholesome restraint upon the 
party in power. AVithout such restraint a party rule be- 



14-1 STOlilES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

comes tynmnical and corrupt. The prosperity which is 
made possible in the South by its ^reat advantages of soil 
and climate will never be realized until e\ery voter can 
freely and safely support any j^arty he pleases. 

POPULAR p:i)UCATION. 

And next in importance to freedom andjustice is popular 
education without which neither justice nor freedom can be 
permanently maintained. Its interests are intrusted to the 
States and to the voluntary action of the people. 

Whatever help the nation can justly offer should be gen- 
erously given to aid the, States in supporting common 
schools; biitit would be unjust to our people and dangerous 
to our institutions to apply any |)ortion of the revenues of 
the nation or of the States to the support of sectarian 
Bcho<ils. The separation of the Church and the State, in 
everything relating to taxation, should be absolute. 

NATI()>'AL FINANCES. 

On the RuTtject of national finances, my views have been 
so frequently and fully expressed that little is needed in the 
way of auditional statement. The public debt is now so 
well secured, and the rate of annual interest has been so 
reduced by refunding, that rigid economy in expenditures 
and the faithful application of our surplus revenues to the 
payment of the principal of the debt will gi-adually, but 
certainly, free the people from its burdens and close with 
horior the financiiil chapter of the war. At the same time 
the government can provide for all its ordinary expendi- 
tures, and discharge its sacred obligations to the soldiers of 
the Union and to the widows and orphans of those who fell 
in its defense. 

The resumption of specie payments, which the Republi- 
can l)arty so courageously and successfully accomplished, 
has removed from the field of controversy many questions 
that long and seriously disturbed the credit of the govern- 



MISCELLANEOUS. 145 

ment aud the business of the country. Our paper currency 
is now as national as the flag, and resumption has not only 
made it everywhere equal to coin, but has brought into use 
our store of gold and silver. The circulating medium is 
now more abundant than ever before, and we need only to 
maintain the equality of all our dollars to insure to labor 
and capital a measure of value from the use of which no 
one can suffer loss. The great prosperity which the country 
is now enjoying should not be endangered by any violent 
changes or doubtful financial experiments. 

CUSTOMS LAWS. 

In reference to our custom laws, a policy should be pur- 
sued which will bring revenue to the Treasury and will 
enable the labor and capital employed in our great industries 
to compete fairly in our own markets with the labor and 
capital of foreign producers. We legislate for the people 
of the United States, not for the whole world, and it is our 
glory that the x\merican laborer is more intelligent and 
better paid than his foreign competitor. Our country can- 
not be independent unless its people, with their abundant 
natural resources, possess the requisite skill at any time to 
clothe, arm, and equip themselves for war, and in time of 
peace to produce all the necessary implements of labor. 
It was the manifest intention of the founders of the gov- 
ernment to provide for the common defense, not by stand- 
ing armies alone, but by raising among the people a greater 
army of artisans, whose intelligence and skill should 
powerfully contribute to the safety and glory of the nation. 

Fortunately for the interests of commerce, there is no 
longer any formidable opposition to appropriations for the 
improvement of our harbors and great navigable rivers, 
provided that the expenditures for that purpose are strictly 
limited to works of national importance. 

The Mississippi River, with its great tributaries, is of 

10 



146 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

sucli vital importance to so many millions of people, that 
the safety of its navigation requires exceptional considera- 
tion. In order to secure to the nation the control of all its 
waters, President Jefferson negotiated the purchase of a 
vast territory, extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the 
Pacific Ocean. The wisdom of Congress should be invoked 
to devise some plan by which that great river shall cease to 
be a terror to those who dwell upon its banks, and by which 
its shipping may s'afely carry the industrial products of 
25,000,000 of people. The interests of agriculture, which 
is the basis ol all our material prosperity,- and in which 
seven-twelfths of our population are engaged, as well as the 
interests of manufacturers and commerce, demand that the 
facilities for cheap transportation shall be increased by the 
use of all our great water-courses. 

THE CHINESE QUESTION. 

The material interests of this country, the traditions of 
its settlement, and the sentiments of our people have led 
the Government to offer the widest hospitality to immigrants 
who seek our shores for new and happier homes, willing to 
share the burdens as w^ell as the benefits of our society, and 
intending that their posterity shall become an undistin- 
guishable part of oar population. The recent movement of 
the Chinese to our Pacific coast, partakes but little ol the 
qualities of such an immigration, either in its purposes or its 
result. It is too much like an importation to be welcomed 
without restriction; too much like an invasion to be looked 
upon without solicitude. We cannot consent to allow any 
form of servile labor to be introduced among ns under the 
guise of immigration. Recognizing the gravity of this 
subject, the present Administration, supported by Congress, 
has sent to China a commission of distinguished citizens 
for the purpose of securing sucli a modification of the exist- 
ing treaty as will prevent the evils likely to arise from the 



MISCELLANEOUS. 147 

present situation. It is confidently believed that these dip- 
lomatic negotiations will be successful, without the loss ot 
commercial intercourse between the two powers, which 
promises a great increase of reciprocal trade and the en- 
largement of our markets. Should these efforts fail, it will 
be the duty of Congress to mitigate the evils already felt, 
and prevent their increase by such restrictions as, without 
violence or injustice, will place upon a sure foundation the 
peace of our communities, and the freedom and dignity of 
labor. 

THE CIVIL SERVICE. 

The appointment of citizens to the various executive and 
judicial offices of the Government is perhaps the most diffi- 
cult of all the duties which the Constitution has imposed 
upon the Executive. The Constitution wisely demands 
that Congress shall co-operate with the executive depart- 
ments in placing the civil service on a better basis. Ex- 
perience has proved that with our frequent changes of 
administration, no system of reform can be made effective 
and permanent without the aid of legislation. Appoint- 
ments to the military and naval service are so regulated by 
law and custom as to leave but little ground of complaint. 
It may not be wise to make similar regulations by law for 
the civil service; but, without invading the authority or 
necessary discretion of the Executive, Congress should de- 
vise a method that will determine the tenure of office and 
greatly reduce the uncertainty which makes that service so 
uncertain and unsatisfactory. Without depriving any offi- 
cer of his rights as a citizen, the Government should require 
him to discharge all his official duties with intelligence, 
efficiency and faithfulness. To select wisely from our vast 
population those who are best fitted for the many offices to 
be filled, requires an acquaintance far beyond the range ot 
any one man. The Executive should therefore seek and 



148 STORIES AND SKETCHES OF GARFIELD. 

receive the information and assistance of those whose 
knowledge of the communities in which the duties are to be 
performed best qualifies them to aid them in making the 
wisest choice. 

THE PLATFORM. 

The doctrines announced by the Chicago convention are 
not the temporary devices of a party to attract votes and 
carry an election ; they are deliberate convictions resulting 
from a careful study of the spirit of our institutions, the 
events of our history, and the best impulses of our people. 
In my judgment, these principles should control the legis- 
lation and administration of the Government. In any 
event, they will guide my conduct until experience points 
a better way. If elected, it will be my purpose to enforce 
strict obedience to the Constitution and the laws, and to 
promote, as best I may, the interest and honor of the whole 
country, relying for support upon the wisdom of Congress, 
the intelligence of the people, and the favor of God. With 
great respect, I am, very truly yours, 

James A. Garfield. 
To the Hon. George F. Hoar, Chairman of Committee. 




CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 
A Sketch of the Life of the Republican Caudidate for Vice-President. 

Chester Allan Arthur is a native of Vermont, having 
been born at Fairlield, Franklin County, (J)ctober 15th,. 
1830. 

He was the oldest son ot the Rev. William A.rthur, D. D.,. 
a Baptist clergyman, and his mother's maiden name was 
Malvina Stone. His father was a native of the north of 
Ireland, and a graduate of the College of Belfast. He 
was a noted scholar and author of several books on 
philology. 

Tlie subject of this sketch was fitted f«r college mainly 
under his father's instructions, but also studied at Green- 
wich, Washington County, N. Y. He entered Union 
College, and graduated therefrom at the age of eighteen 
with high honors. He began the study of law soon after 
leaving college, in the office of the Hon. E. D. Culver, a 
former member of Congress from Pennsylvania., who was 
prominent in the anti-slavery struggles of thirty years ago. 
Gen. Arthur was admitted to the Bar in 1853, and began 
practice in New York. 

As a young man he early took great interest in political 

150 



A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY. 151 

matters, and bore an active part in the Free-Soil agitation. 
He was a delegate from King's County (Brooklyn) to the 
first Republican State Convention held in New York, and 
gained considerable reputation from his connection with the 
litigation growing out of slavery and the rights of colored 
citizens. 

He was attorney in the celebrated Lemon slave case, in 
which William M. Evarts acted as counsel, with Charles 
O'Conor as opposing counsel for the slaveholder, Jonathan 
Lemon, of Virginia, who, on his way to Texas, brought 
slaves with him into New York, Tliis case, involving 
some of the most important principles of personal liberties 
and the comities of the States, was in the courts for many 
yeais, and was finally decided by the Court of Appeals 
against the slaveholder. Gen. Arthur prepared all the 
papers in the case and sued out the -WTit of habeas corpus 
by which the case got into court. He was also attorney in 
the case involving the right of the black man to ride in the 
cars, in which he was also successful in the Court of las t 
resort. 

Lie continued in the practice of his profession with good 
success until the breaking out of the war. During Gov. 
Morgan's administration he was for the first two years of 
the war Inspector and Quartermaster-General of New 
York. In this position he displayed remarkable organiz- 
ing capacity in placing the New York troops in the field, 
and gained a high reputation as an officer. 

Upon Seymour's election as Governor, Gen. Arthur re- 
turned to his practice, in which he continued until his ap- 
pointment as Collector of the port of New York, in Novem- 
ber, 1871. This appointment came to him unsolicited, and 
was an entire surprise. He discharged the duties of the 
place with signal ability, and to the entire acceptance of 
th e commercial public. Business men of all parties peti- 



152 CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 

tioned for his retention in office, and lie was reappointed in 
1875, holding the position until his removal l)y President 
Hayes under circumstances with which the public is 
familiar. 

He is a portly, middle-aged gentleman, with gray hairs 
and pleasant features, social and amiable, fond of a good 
dinner, and at home is agreeable company; quite frequently 
seen on public occasions in New York, and very active, but 
never obtrusive; altogether a public-spirited citizen and 
typical New York business man; rather slow of speech, but 
good in substance, and is one of Gen. Grant's intimate 
friends and admirers. 

Mr. Arthur is now engaged in the practice of his profes- 
sion. He has two children — a son of 14 and a daughter of 
8 years of age. He had the misfortune to lose his devoted 
wife last January, whose death was sudden and unexpected. 
Mrs. Arthur was a daughter of the late Capt. Herndon, of 
the United States Navy, the intrepid explorer of the river 
Amazon, who was lost at sea while in command of the 
steamship Central America on her trip between Havana 
and New York in 1857. 




MISCELLANEOUS. 153 

Gen. Arthur's Letter of Acceptance. 

Gen Arthur forwarded to Senator Hoar, Cliairraan of the 
Committee, the following letter of acceptance: 

Dear Sir: I accept the position assigned me by the 
great party whose action you announce. This acceptance 
implies an approval of the principles declared by the Con- 
vention, but recent usage permits me to add some expres- 
sion of my own views. The right and duty to secure 
honesty and order in popular elections is a matter so vital 
that it must stand in the front. The authority of the Na- 
tional Government to preserve from fraud and force elec- 
tions, at which its own officers are chosen, is a chief point 
on which the two parties are plainly and intensely opposed. 
Acts of Congress for ten years have in N^ew York and eke- 
where done much to curb the violence and M^-ong to which 
the ballot and count have been again and again subjected, 
sometimes despoiling great cities, sometimes stifling the 
voice of a whole State, otten placing not only in Congress, 
but on the Bench and in Legislatures, numbers of men never 
chosen by the people. 

The Democratic party, since gaining possession of the two 
Houses of Congress, has made these laws the object of bit- 
ter, ceaseless assault, and despite all resistance has hedged 
them with restrictions cunningly contrived to baffle and 
paralyze them. This aggressive majority boldly attempted 
to extort from the Executive his approval of various enact- 
ments destructive of these election laws by revolutioiuirv 
threats that a constitutional exercise of the veto ])ower 
would be punished by withholding appropriations necessary 
to carry on the Government, and these threats were actually 
carried out by refusing needed appropriations and by forc- 
ing an extra session of Congress, lasting for months and 
resulting in concessions to this usurping demand, which are 



154 CHESTER A. A IITJIVR. 

likely in many States to subject the majority to tLe lawless 
will of a minority. Ominous signs of a public disapproval 
alone subdued this arrogant power into a snllen surrender 
for the time being of a part of its demands. 

The P^publican party has strongly approved the stern 
refusal of its representatives to suffer the overthrow of 
statutes believed to be salutary and just. It has always 
insisted, and now insists, that the Government of the 
United States of America is empowered and in duty bound 
to effectually protect the elections denoted by the Constitu- 
tion as National. More than this, the Republican party 
holds as the cardinal point in its creed that the Govern- 
ment should by every means known to the Constitution 
protect all American citizent everywhere in the full enjoy- 
ment of their civil and political rights. As a great part of 
its work of reconstruction, the Republican party gave the 
ballot to the emancipated slave as his right and defense. A 
large increase in-the number of members ot Congress and 
of the Electoral College from former slave-holding States 
was the immediate resiilt. 

The history of recent years abounds in evidence that in 
many ways and in many places, especially where their 
number has been great enough to endanger Democratic 
control, the very men by whose citizenship this increase of 
representation was effected have been debarred and robbed 
of their voice and their vote. It is true that no State 
statute or Constitution in so many words denies or abridges 
the exercise of their political rights, but bodies employed 
to bar their way are no less effectual. 

It is a suggestive and startling thought that the increased 
power derived from the enfranchisement of a race now 
denied its share in governing the country, wielded ])y those 
who lately sought the overthrow, of the Government, is now 
the Hole reliance to defeat tlu; party which I'cpresented the 



MIISCELLANEOUB, 165 

sovereignty and nationality of the American people in the 
greatest crisis of our history. Republicans cherish none 
of the resentments whicli may have animated them during 
the actual conflict of arms. Tliey long for a full and real 
reconciliation between the auctions which were needlessly 
and lamentably at strife. They sincerely offer the hand of 
good will, but they ask in return a pledge of good taith. 
They deeply feel that the party whose career is so illustrious 
in great and patriotic achievements will not fulfill its des- 
tiny until peace and prosperity are established in all the 
land, nor until liberty of thought, conscience, and action, 
and equality of opportunity shall not be merely cold for- 
malities of the statute, but living birthrights wdiich the 
humble may confidently claim, and the powerful dare not 
deny. 

CIVIL SERVICE. 

The resolution referring to the public service seems to 
me deserving of approval. Surely no man should be the 
incumbent of an office the duties of which he is for a cause 
unfit to perform, who is lacking in ability, fidelity, or in- 
tegrity, which a proper administration of such office de- 
mands. This sentiment would doubtless meet with general 
acquiescence, but opinion has been widely divided upon the 
wisdom and practicability of various reformatory schemes 
which have been suggested, and of certain proposed regu- 
lations governing appointments to public office. The effi- 
ciency of such regulations has been distrusted mainly be- 
cause they have seemed to exalt mere educational and 
abstract tests above general business capacity and even 
Bpecial fitness for the particidar work in hand. It seems 
to me that the rules which should be applied to the man. 
agement of public seraice may be pnjperly conformed in 
the main to such as regulate the conduct of successful pri- 
vate buisness. Original appointments sliould be based 



166 CHESTER A. AR2HUR. 

upon ascertained fitness. The tenure of office shonld be 
stable. Positions of responsibility should, so far as practi- 
cable, be filled by the promotion of worthy and efficient 
officers. The investigation of all complaints, and the pun- 
ishment of all official misconduct, should be prompt and 
thorough. 

These views, which I have long held, repeatedly declared, 
and uniformly applied when called upon to act, I find em- 
bodied in the resolution, which of course I approve, I will 
add that by the acceptance of public office, whether high or 
low, one does not, in my judgement, escape any of his re- 
sponsibility as a citizen or lose or impair any of his rights 
as a citizen, and that he should enjoy absolute liberty to 
think, and speak, and act in political matters according to 
his own will and conscience, provided only that he honora- 
bly, faithfully, and fully discharges all his official duties. 

FINANCE. 

The resumption of specie-payments — one of the fruits of 
Republican policy — has brought a return of al)undant])ros- 
perity and the settlement of many distracting questions. 
The restoration of sound money, the large reduction of our 
public debt and the bui'den of interest, the high advance- 
ment of the public credit — all attest the ability and courage 
of the Republican party to deal with such financial prob- 
lems as may hereafter demand solution. Our paper cur- 
rency is now as good as gold, and silver is performing its 
legitimate function for the piirpose of change. The prin- 
ciples which should govern the relations of these elements 
of the currency are simple and clear. There must be no 
deteriorated coin, no depreciated paper, and every dollar, 
whether of metal or jjaper, should stand the test of the 
world's standard. 

POPULAR EDUCATION. 

Tlie value of popular education can hardly be overstated. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 157 

Although its interests must of necessity be chiefly confided 
to voluntary eftbrt and individual action of the several 
States, they should be encouraged so far as the Constitution 
permits by the generous co-operation of the National Gov- 
ernment. The interests of a whole country demand that 
the advantages of our common-school system should be 
brought within the reach of every citizen, and that no rev- 
enues of the Nation or the State should be devoted to the 
support of sectarian schools. 

TARIFF AND INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. 

Such changes should be made in the j)resent tariff and 
system of taxation as willrelieveany overburdened industry 
or class, and enable our manufacturers and artisans to com- 
pete successfully with those of other lands. 

The Government should aid works of internal improve- 
ment, national in their character, and should promote the 
development of our water-courses and harbors wherever the 
general interests of cominerce require, 

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

Four years ago, as now, the nation stood at the threshold 
OS a Presidential election, and the Republican party, in 
soliciting a continuance of its ascendency, founded its hope 
of success, not upon its promises, but upon its history. Its 
subsequent course has been such as to strengthen the claims 
which it then made to the confidence and support of the 
country. On the other hand, considerations more urgent 
than have ever before existed forbid the accession of its op- 
ponents to power. Their success, if success attend them, 
must chiefly come from the united support of that section 
which sought the forcible destruction of the Union, and 
which, according to all the teachings of our past history, 
will demand ascendency in the councils of the party to 
whose triumph it will have made by far the largest con- 
tribution. 



158 



CHESTER A. ARTHUR. 



There is the gravest reason for the apprehension that ex- 
orbiant claims upon the public Treasury, by no means 
limited t® the hundreds of millions alrfiady covered by bills 
ill trod iK-ed in Congress within the past four years, would be 
t^ucceasfully urged if the Democratic party should succeed 
in supplementing its present control of the National Leg- 
islature by electing the Executive also. 

There is danger in intrusting the whole law-making 
power of the Government to a party which has in almost 
every Southern State repudiated obligations quite as sacred 
as those to which the faith of the Nation now stands pledged. 

I do not doubt that success awaits the Republican party, 
and that its triumph will assure a just, economical, and 
patriotic administration. I am, respectfully, your obedient 
servant, C. A. Arthur. 

To the Hon. George F. Hoar, President of the Republi- 
can National Convention. 




INAUGURAL ADDRESS 



OF 



. PRESIDENTJAMES A.GARFIELD. 



President Garfield delivered the following inaugural 
addrsss at "Washington, D. C, March 4th, 1881: 

Fellow Citizen : We stand to-day upon an eminence which 
overlooks a hundred years of National life— a century crowded 
with perils, but crowded with the triumphs of liberty and love. 
Before continuing the onward march, let us pause on this height 
for a moment to strengthen our faith and renew our hope by a 
glance at the pathway along which our people have traveled. 

It is now three days more than a hundred years since the adop- 
tion of the first written Constitution and perpetual union. The 
new Republic was then beset with danger on every hand. It had 
not conquered a place in the family of Nations. The decisive 
battle of the War for Independence — whose centennial anniver- 
sary will soon be gratefully celebrated at Yorktown— had not yet 
been fought. The Colonists were struggling not only against the 
armies of Great Britain, but against the settled opinion of man- 
kind ; for the world did not believe that the supreme authority of 
the Government could be safely intrusted to the guardianship of 
the people themselves. 

We can not overestimate the fervent love or the intelligent 
courage, having the common sense with which our fathers made 
the great experiment of self-government. When they found, 
after a short time, that a confederacy of States was too weak to 
meet the necessities of the glorious and expanding Republic, they 
boldly set it aside, and in its stead established a National Union, 
founded directly upon the will of the people, endowed with future 
powers of self-preservation and with ample authority for the 
accomplishment of its great objects. Under this Constitution the 
boundaries of freedom enlarged, the foundations of order and 
peace have been strengthened, and growth in all the better ele- 
ments of national life has vindicated the wisdom of the founders, 
and given new hope to their descendants. Under this Constitu- 
tion our people long ago made tbemselvea safe against danger 

109 



ItJO INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

from without, and secured for their mariners and flag equality of 
rights on all the seas. Under this Constitution twenty-five State- 
houses have been added to the Union, with Constitutions and 
laws framed and enforced by their own. citizens to secure the 
manifold blessings of local and self-government. jThe jurisdic- 
tions of this Constitution now covers an area fifty times greater 
than that of the original thirteen States, and a population twenty 
times greater than that of 1780. 

The trial of that Constitution came at last under the tremen- 
dous pressure of civil war. We ourselves are witnesses that the 
Union emerged from the blood and fire of that conflict purified 
and made stronger for all beneficent purposes of 'good government 
And now, at the close of this first century of growth, with the 
inspirations of its history in their hearts, our people have lately 
reviewed the condition of the nation, passed judgment upon the 
conduct and opinions of political parties, and have registered 
their will concerning the future administration of the Govern- 
ment. To interpret and to execute that will in accordance with 
the Constitution is the paramount duty of the Executive. Even 
from this brief review it is manifest that the nation is resolutely 
facing to the front, resolving to employ its best energies in devel- 
oping the great possibilities of the future, sacredly preserving 
whatever lias been gained to liberty and good government during 
the century. Oor people are determined to leave behind them all 
those bitter controversies concerning things which have been 
irrevocably settled, further discussion of which can only stir up 
strife and delay the onward march. 

The supremacy of the nation and its laws should be no longer 
a subject of debate. That discussion, which for half a century 
threatened the existence of the Union, was closed at last in the 
high court of war, by a decree from which there is no appeal ; that 
the Constitution, and the laws made in pursuance thereof, shall 
continue to be the supreme law of the land, binding alike on the 
States and the people. This decree does not disturb the autonomy 
of the States, nor interfere with any of their necessary rules of 
local self-government; but it does fix and establish the permanent 
supremacy of the Union. The will of the nation, speaking with 
the voice of battle and through the amended Constitution, has 
fulfilled the great promise of 1776, by proclaiming: "Liberty 
throu'^hout the land, to all the inhabitants thereof." 

The elevation of the negro race from slavery to the full rights 
of citizenship is the most important political change we have 
known since the adoption of the Constitution of 1776. Ko 



OF FBE-^IDEyr OAR FIELD. 161 

thoughtful man can fail to appreciate its beneficial effect upon 
our people. It has freed us from the perpetual clanger of war and 
dissolution. It has added immensely to the moral and industrial 
forces of our people. It has liberated the master as well as the 
slave from a relation which wrongetl and enfeebled both. It has 
sun'endered to their own guardianship the manhood of more thart 
live million people, and has opened to each one of them a career 
of freedom and usefulness. It has given new inspiration to the^ 
power of self-help in both races, by making labor more honorable 
lo the one and more necessary to the other. The influence of this 
foi'ce will grow greater and bear richer fruit with coming years. 

Xo doubt the great change has cansed serious disturbance to 
our Southern community. This is to l)e deplored ; but those who 
resisted the change should remember that in our institutions 
there was no middle ground for the iiegro between slavery and 
equal citizenship. There can be no pniuanent disfranchised 
peasantry in the ITnited States. Freedom can never yield its full" 
ness of blessing so long as the law or its administration phices the 
smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virti.ous citizenship. The 
emancipated race has already made remarkable progress. With 
unquestionable devotion to the Union, with a patience and gentle- 
ness not born of fear, they have " followed the light as God gave 
them to see the light." They are rapidly laying the material 
foundations of self-support, widening the circle of intelligence^ 
and beginning to enjoy the blessings that gather around thS'. 
homes of the industrious poor. They deserve the generous en- 
couragement of all good men. So far as my authority can law- 
fully extend, they shall enjoy the full and equal protection of the- 
Constitution and laws. 

The free enjoyment of equal suffrage is still in question, and a. 
frank statement of the issue may aid its solution. It is alleged, 
that in many communities negro citizens are practically denied 
the freedom of the ballot. In so far as the truth of this allegation 
is admitted, it is answered that in many places honest loc.d gov- 
ernment is impo^jsible i ^ a mass c f unedaeated negroes are allowed 
to vote. These are gra^'e allegations. So tar as the latter is trt;e, 
it is no palliation that can be offered for opposing freedom of the 
ballot. Bad local government is certainly a great evil, wlucli 
ought to be prevented ; but to violate the freedom and sanctity of 
suffrage is more than an evil — it is a crime which, if persisted in,^ 
will destroy the Government itself. Suicide is not a remedy. If 
in oilier lands it be hii^h treason to compass the death of a King^ 

-it should be counted no less a crime here to strangle our sovereign 

l>o\vf'; jiMil stifle its voice. l.t 



162 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

It has been said that unsettled questions have no pity for the 
repose of nations. It should be said, with the utmost emphasis, 
that this question of sutfrage will never give repose or safety to 
the States or to the nation until each, within its own jurisdiction, 
makes and keeps the ballot free and pure by the strong sanctions 
of law. But'the danger which arises from ignorance in the voter 
can not be denied. It covers a field far wider than that of negro 
suffrage, and the present condition of that race. It is a danger 
that lurks and hides in the sources and fountain of power in any 
State. We have no standard by which to measure the disaster 
that may be brought upon us by ignorance and vice in citizens, 
when joined to corruption and fraud in the suffrage. The voters 
of the Union, who oiake and unmake Constitutions, and upon 
whose will hangs the destiny of our Governments, can transmit 
their supreme authority to no successor save the coming genera- 
tion of voters, who are the sole heirs of sovereign power. If that 
generation comes to its inheritance blinded by ignorance and cor- 
rupted bv vice, the fall of the Republic will be certain and reme- 
diless. 

The census has already sounded the alarm in appalling figures, 
which mark how dangerously high the tide of illiteracy has 
arisen among our voters and their children. To the South the 
question is of supreme imjwrtance; but the responsibility for the 
existence of slavery does not rest upon the South alone. The 
nation itself is responsible for the extension of suffrage, and is 
under special obligations to aid in removing the illiteracy which 
it. has added to tlie voting population. For North and South 
alike there is but one remedy: All the constitutional powers of 
the nation and of the States, and all the volunteer forces of the 
people should be summoned to meet this danger by the saving in- 
fluence of universal education. It is the high privilege and the 
sacred duty of those now living to educate their successors, and fit 
them by intelligence and virtue for the inheritance which awaits 
them. In this beneficent work sections and races should be for* 
gotten, and partisanship should be unknown. Let our people 
find a new meaning in the Divine Oracle which declares that "A 
little ch.ild shall lead them," for our little children will soon con- 
trol the destinies of the Republic. 

My countrymen, we do not now differ in our judgment con- 
cerning the controversies of the past generations, and fifty years 
hence our children will not be divided in their opinions concern- 
ing our controversies. They will surely bless their fatliers and 
their fathers' God that the Union was preserved, that slavery. 



OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD IQS 

was overthrown, and that both races were made equal before ihe 
law. AVe may hasten or we may retard, but we can not prevent 
the final reconciliation. Is it not possible for us now to make a 
truce with them by anticipating and accepting its inevitable 
verdict? Enterprises of the highest importance to our moral and 
material well-being invite us, and offer ample powex'S. Let all 
our people, leaving behind them the battle fields of dead issues, 
move forward, and in the strength of liberty and restored Union 
win the grandest victories of peace. 

The prosperity which now prevails is without parallel in our 
liistory. Fruitful seasons have done much to secure it, but they 
have not done all. The preservation of the public credit and the 
resumption of specie payments, so successfully obtained by the 
Administration of my predecessors, has enabled our people to 
secure the blessings which the seasons brought. By the experi- 
ence of commercial Nations in all ages it has been found that 
gold and silver afforded the only safe foundation for a monetary 
system. Confusion has recently been created by variations in the 
relative value of the two metals; but I confidently believe that 
arrangements can be made between the leading commercial 
Nations which will secure,the general use of both metals. Con- 
gress should provide that the compulsory coinage of silver, now 
required by law, may not disturb our monetary system by driving 
eitlier metal out of circulation. If possible, such adjustment 
should be made that the purchasing power of every coined dollar 
will be exactly equal to its debt-paying power in all th6 markets 
of the world. The chief duty of the National Government in con- 
nection with the currency of the country is to coin and to declare 
its value. 

Grave doubts have been entertained whether Congress is au- 
thorized by the Constitution to make any form of paper money legal 
tender. The present issue of United States notes has been sus- 
tained by the necessities of war; butsuch paper should depend for 
its value and currency upon its convenience in use and its prompt 
redemption in coin at the will of the holder, and not upon its 
compulsory circulation. These notes are not money, but promises 
to pay money. If the holders demand it, the promises should be 
kept. The refunding of the National debt at a lower rate of in- 
terest should be accomplished without compelling the withdrawal 
of National Bank notes, and thus disturbing the business of the 
-country. I venture to refer to the position I have occupied on ihe 
finance question during a long service in Congress, and to say that 
time and experience have strengthened the opinions I have so 



164 IIS AUGURAL ADDBESS 

often expressed on these subjects. The nnances of the Govern- 
ment shall suffer no detriment which it may be possible for my 
Administration to prevent. 

The interests of agriculture deserve more attention from the 
Government than they hr.ve yet received. The farms of the 
United States afford homes and employment for more Lhan one- 
half of our people, and furnish much the largest part of all our 
exports. As the Government lights our coasts for the protection 
of marinei's and the benefit of commerce, so it should give to the 
tillers of the soil the lights of practical science and experience. 
Our manufacturers are rapidly making us industrially independ- 
ent, and are opening. to capital and labor nt- w and profitable fields 
of employment. This steady and healthy grov.'th should still be 
maintained. Our facilities for transportation should be promoted 
by the contmued improvement of our harbors and great Avater- 
ways, and by the increase of our tonnage on the ocean. 

The development of the world's commerce has led to urgent, de- 
mands for shortening the great sea voyage around C;ipe Horn by 
constructing ship canals or railroads across the isthmus which 
unites the two continents. Various plans to this end liave 
been suggested, and will need considA'ation ; but none of them 
have been sufficiently matured to warrant the United States in 
extending pecuniary aid. The subject is one which will imme- 
diately engage the attention of the Goveriiment, with a viev/ to 
thorough .protection to American interests. We will urgeino nar- 
row policy, nor seek peculiar or exclusive privileges in any com- 
mercial route; but, in the language of my predecessors, I believe 
it to be " the right and duty of the United States lo assert and 
maintain such supervision and authority over any intor-oceanic 
canal across the isthmus that connects 2J"orth and South America 
as will protect our National interests." 

The Constitution guarantees absolute religious freedom. Con- 
gress is prohibited from making any laws respecting the estab- 
lishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise tiiernof. The 
Territories of the United States are subject to tlse direct legisla- 
tive autliority of Congress, and hence the General Guvernment is 
responsible for any violation of the Constitution in any of them. 
It is, therefore, a reproach to the Government that in the mo.-jt 
populous of the Territories the Constitutional guarantee is not 
enjoyed by the people, and the authority of Congress is set at 
naught. The Mormon Church not only offends the moral sense of 
mankind by sanctioning polygamy, but prevf iits tlie administra- 
tion of justice through the ordinary instrumentalities of law. In 



OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 166 

my jutlgmerit, it is tlie duty of Congress, while respecting to the 
uttermost the conscientious cons'ictions and religious scruples of 
every citizen, to ])roliibit within its jurisdiction all criminal prac- 
tices, especially of that class which destroy the family relation 
and endanger social order. Xor can any ecclesiastical organiza- 
tion be safely permitted to usurp in the smallest degree the func- 
tioas and powers of the National Government. 

The Civil .Service can never be placed on a satisfactory basis 
tin til it is regulated by law for the good of the service itself, for 
the protection of those who are intrusted with the appointing 
power against the waste of time and the obstruction of public 
business caused by the inordinate pressure for place, and for the 
protection of incumbents against intrigue and wrong. I shall at 
theproper time ask Congress to fix the tenure of minor offices of 
the several executive departments, and prescribe the grounds 
upon which removals shall be made during the terms for which 
incumbents have been appointed. 

Finally, acting always within the authority and the limitations 
of tlie Constitution, invading neither the rights of the States nor 
the reserved rights of the people, it will be the purpose of my 
Administration to maintain authority, and in all places within 
its jurisdiction to enforce obedience to all laws of the Union and 
in the interests of the people ; to demand rigid economy in all 
expenditures of the Government, and to require honest and faith- 
ful service of all executive officers— remembering that offices were 
created, not for the benefit of the incumbents or their supporters, 
but for the service of the Government. 

And now, fellow-citizens. I am about to assume the great trust 
which you have committed to my hands. I appeal to you for that 
earnest and thoughtful support which makes this Government, 
in fact, as it is in law. a Government of the people. I shall greatly 
rely upon ihe vi-isciom and patriotism of Congress, and of those 
who may share with me the responsibilities and duties of the 
Adianiistration; and upon our efforts to promote the welfare of 
this great people and their Government, I reverently invoke the 
support and blessings of Almighty God. 



166 ASSASSINATIOii 

ASSASSINATION 

—OF- 

PRESIDENT GARFIELD- 



Full Particulars of the Terrible Event. 

It was on Saturday morning, July 2, 1881, at 9:28, in 
the Baltimore & Potomac depot at Washington, D. C, 
that occurred the tragic attempt to assassinate President 
Garfield. It was the President's intention that morning 
to have started for Long Branch, where he expected to 
meet Mrs. Garfiehi and spend a season of pleasant recrea- 
tion. The day opened with refreshing breezes, and it is 
said the President was never more happy; but alas! ere its 
sun had set, the whole nation and civilized world were 
stricken with unspeakable sadness at what was believed to 
be the momentary death of one of God's noblest of men, 
James A. Garfield. 

An eye witness of the terrible tragedy says: "I was- 
coming down Pennsylvania avenue when I saw a carriage 
coming up the avenue, the horses running so fast that I 
thought they were running away. Just as the carriage 
arrived in front of me a man put his head out of the win- 
dow and said, ' Faster, faster, faster, danm it!' After hear- 
ing this remark I thought there was something wrong, and 
ran after the carriage. When it reached the depot a man 
jumped uut and entered the ladies' room. He had not been 
there more than three minutes when the Piiesident arrived^ 
stepped out of his carriage, and also entered the ladies* 



OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 167 

room. The President, after passing through the door, was 
just turning the corner of a seat when the assassin, who 
was standing on the left of the door, fired. The ball struck 
the President in the back. The President fell forward. 
I ran into the depot, and jus«: then the man fired again 
while the President was falling. The moment the Presi- 
dent fell a policeman, who had been standing at the depot 
door keeping the way clear for the President and his party, 
grabbed the assassin by the neck, and, as he pulled him out 
of the depot, another policeman came to his assistance. 
Just after firing the shot the assassin exclaimed, ' Pve 
killed Garfield! Arthur is President. I am a stalwart!"* 
The first person to reach the President after he had fal- 
len upon the fioor, was Mrs. Sarah B. White, a lady in 
charge of the ladies' waiting room, who saw him enter and 
saw the would be assassin raise his hand and fire. Slie 
raised up the head of the stricken man and he was soon 
placed upon a mattress and borne to an upper room of the 
depot building. 

Gen. Garfield, as he lay upon his mattress in the upper 
room, is said by those who were about him to have been 
brave and cheerful. His first impulse was to have his wife 
informed, and he dictated a dispatch to Col. Eockwell, in 
which he Informed her that he had been wounded, ho .' 
seriously no one could tell; that he desired her to come 
immediately. He was conscious and sent his love. At the 
same time another dispatch was sent to Maj. Swaim, Judge 
Advocate-General, who had charge of Mrs. Garfield, in- 
forming him of the nature of the shooting, and directed 
him to keep the information from Mrs. Garfield. While 
this was being done, the carriage of one of the Cabinet 
ofiicers who was present was driven with great speed to the 
ofiice of Dr. Bliss, on F street, who, with his instrument- 
case, was hastily driven to the depot,-and was the first of 



16S ASSASSINATION 

the physicians to arrive. lie instantly pronounced the 
wound a dangerous one, but not necessarily fatal. After- 
wards lie said it was a wound of exceedingly severe char- 
acter, and all the physicians concurred with him. Garfield 
manfully and cheerfully talked with his friends, among 
whom was Col. Robert Ingersoll, to whom he cordially ex- 
tended his hand and said, " I am glad you came." 

It was then found, upon examination, that both shots 
fired by tlie assassin had taken effect. The first was well 
aimed. It had entered the back, just above the kidney, 
and had perforated the liver. The second shot was fired 
while the President wa^ falling, and went under the left 
arm, barely grazing the skin. 

It was evidently Guiteau's purpose to shoot Garfield sev- 
eral times, for in the confession which he left sealed, he 
says that he shot the President several times. 

The surgeons, of whom a dozen had arrived, agreed that 
the President should be taken to the White House as 
speedily as possible befo-e his strength should fail. Gen. 
Sherman, who had also come,. had already provided an am- 
bulance, and Secretary of "War Robert Lincoln, with re- 
markable sagacity, had ordered a company of troops from 
the arsenal to help preserve order. A large squad of 
mounted police had been summoned. They cleared the 
waj- for the ambulance, ridincr np the avenue at a furious 
gallop. The ambulance containing the President was 
driven at great speed, to avoid a possible crowd. It en- 
tered tlie White House grounds at the lower gate, the 
President reclining upon the mattress. As he was lifted 
out he saw, at a window, his private secretary and a num- 
ber of friends who were at the White House looking out, 
who had already been notified by telephone from the depot, 
of the attempted assassination. The President, raising his 
head from his improvised litter, waived his hand in greet- 



OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 169 

ing to those who were so anxiously watching his arrival. 
He showed, even in this suprenie moment, the same tender 
consideration for those around him whicli has always char- 
acterized his private and public career. He was imme- 
diately brought into the house by the lower entrance, and 
carried Jto the room occupied by the President, in the south- 
west corner of the second floor; there his clothes, which 
were veiy much soiled wuth blood, were removed, and he 
was placed upon his bed. Those who saw him say that 
the trace of the bullet was very plainly visible in a murder- 
ous looking hole above the hip. 

Preparations were immediately taken to preserve quiet 
and order. The large torce of police cleared the White 
House grounds and barred the gates. A company of artil- 
lerymen arrived, and were ordered to camp in the ground, 
and to guard them. The gates were closed to carriages, 
and no persons were allowed to enter the grounds of the 
Executive Mansion without passes from the private secre- 
tary of the President, which were granted to every person 
having any reason except that of idle curiosity to be there. 
Every member of the Cabinet followed the President to the 
White House, and the ladies of the Cabinet ofiicers per- 
formed the tender womanly offices, in the absence of the 
wife who was approaching the National Capital with all 
the speed that steam can give. Officials of all grades and 
prominent persons in the city assembled in the White 
House ante-room, some of them being even permitted to 
enter the President's chamber. It was thought that the 
wound might be probed immediately after the President 
had been brought back to the White House, but this was 
not deemed sale. There were many indications of internal 
hemorrhage. The temperature increased rapidly and the 
pulse was greatly quickened. Soon after the return from the 
depot there was great hope that the bullet might not prove 



170 ASSASSIN AT WN 

fatal, but when it was discovered that the physicians de- 
clined to make a search for it, and postponed any further 
^examination until 3 p. m., it became apparent that the Pres- 
ident was too weak to submit to the operation, and the hopes 
of recovery rested first in the location of the bullet and next 
in a strong constitution. Meanwhile everything was done 
to relieve the sufferer His head was clear and he was very 
comfortable, complaining of nothing except of pain and 
twitching in tis feet, which the surgeons said was not a good 
symptom. 

Soon after he had been placed upon the bed Mr. Blaine 
c^me in. He had stopped in the ante-room long enough to 
write in his own hand dispatches to Minister Lowell at Lon- 
don, and to the principal diplomatic representatives abroad, 
stating that the President had been shot. " I never saw,* 
said Postmaster-General James afterwards, " a man of such 
extraordinary nerve as Mr Blaine. He stood beside the 
Pi'esident when he was shot, and he was the only man in 
all that depot-building who was not almost paralyzed with 
terror. He stood calm and collected in the midst of that 
surging, panic-stricken crowd, and gave his orders as coolly 
as if he had been commanding a battle, and he was within 
a few inches of the assassin's bullet himself." " I never 
thought of myself at all at the time," said Mr. Blaine after- 
wards. " I only thought of our poor, dear President." 
When Blaine entered the President's chamber, the President 
hardly turned. Throughout the entire day he always tried 
to turn whenever a friend entered the room, and extended 
his hand to him. The Secretary of State approached the bed 
side of the rapidly sinking man, w^hen the President placed 
his arm about him, as nearly as he could, and said: " How I 
love you !" It was not until then that Blaine, the strong man 
broke down. The eyes that had refused to fill during the 
intense excitement of the preceding hour Were suffused 
with tears, and the voice was choked when the great man 



OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 171 

stricken down embraced him and said: "How I love you!" 
*• It was a moment" said Mr. Blaine, "that I never shall 
forget in all my life." The Secretary of State soon retired, 
for he did not wish to excite the wounded man by an exhibi- 
tion of emotion. 

The afternoon was spent in the White House in an agony 
of suspense. The entire Cabinet remained there all the 
time. The physicians were in constant consultation. There 
were some hypodermic injections, after which it was noticed 
that the President vomited, a circumstance said to be ex- 
plained by the fact, subsequently discovered, that the ball 
had perforated his liver. For nourishment he was given 
champagne and ice. 

The President talked all the evening as much as they 
would allow him to talk. Mrs. Secretary Blaine, Mrs* 
Attorney-General MacVeagh, Mrs. Postmaster-General 
James, and Mrs. Secretary of War Lincoln, were in constant 
attendance, and the Cabinet officers occasionally went iii to 
see the President. To one of the ladies of the Cabinet the 
President said: 

"What do you suppose he wanted to shoot me for?" 

'She answered that it was charitable to suppose he was a 
crazy and disappointed office-seeker. 

The President said, quoting " Penzance " and cheerfully 
smiling, " I expect that he supposed that ' it was a glorious 
thing to be a pirate King.' " 

The President told Col. Rockwell, soon after the shoot- 
ing, tliat he feared that the shot was fatal, and that he was 
prepared for the worst. During the afternoon he referred 
very seldom to his condition. His greatest anxiety was to 
see his wife. As often as every fifteen minutes he would 
turn to his attendants and ask how soon they expected her 
to arrive. Bulletins from the rapidly-approaching train 
were received at least every half hour. The tracks had 



11-2 ASSASSINATION 

l^een cleared, and the operators at every station along tlie 
road had been instructed to telegraph directly to the White 
Tlonse operator at Washington the progress ot the train. 
Wlien it was learned that Mrs. Garfield covild not, at best, 
ai-i-ive before 7 o'clock, and to do that it would be necessary 
to cover the distance between there and Pliiladelpbia in 
three hours, the President was disappointed. The moments 
seemed to hang heavily with him after 5 o'clock p. m., as 
at that hour, he had learned definitely that the physicians 
did not think that he had much chance to recover. The 
President, at his own earnest request, was informed of this 
fact by Dr. Bliss. The President said: 

" I am not afraid to die. I want to know what you think 
of my condition. Tell me the worst." 

The doctor replied that his condition was very serious, 
but he had some chances of life, but that he would do well 
to prepare for the worst. 

One of the ladies of the Cabinet afterwards cheerfully 
said to the President, " We expect to'pull you through, 
Mr. President." 

(xcn. Garfield answered, "And I am going to try to help 
you pull me through." He never lost his spirits, not even 
when the doctor informed him that he, perhaps, had not 
many hours to live. He said: ''Then God's will be done; 
1 ain content;" but from the moment that he learned that 
he might not live, his thoughts turned more anxiously to 
the arrival of his wife. 

During the afternoon the Cabinet ofiicers seriously dis- 
cussed the situation. It was noticeable that their thoughts 
were turned chiefly to the sufierer, and very little to the 
political results which might follow from the death of the 
President. 

Mr. Kirkwood sat silently much of the time, smoking in 
the ante-room. He was very calm and sad. Secretary 



OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD. ITS 

Blaine did not leave the room except to take a lunch, and 
he conversed freely about the occurrence, and paid an elo- 
quent tribute to the great qualities of his chief. He was 
very calm. His greatest regret seemed to be for the fam- 
ily of the President and for the country. Postmaster-Gen- 
eral James was especially affected. He was frequently 
heard to say, " God save the poor country !" 

Robert Lincoln, painfully reminded of the tragic death 
of his own father, in the same position, said, in the Cabinet 
Council chamber, while sitting beneath that statue of his 
father which looked down upon him, to a colleague in the 
Cabinet and some friends: "It is a curious fact that the 
President has lately talked a great deal about my father. 
At a dinner the other day, to which a number of us were 
invited, his conversation was full of story-telling. He nar- 
rated, among other things, his experiences at the time of 
the assassination in New York, and said he strolled out of 
his room and almost unconsciously attended the meeting 
which was called in Wall street, and made that remarkable 
speech which had such an effect in quieting the mob." 

Mi-s. Garfield's meeting with her husband on her arrival 
from Long Branch, is described as an affecting scene. 

Attorney-General MacYeagh and Mrs. James went to 
tlie dour to meet her as the carriage drove up at the south 
enlianee. 

" How is he? " she said, as she placed her hands in those 
of Mrs. James. 

" We think he is greatly improved," said the Attorney- 
General. 

Mrs. Garfield walked quickly up the stairs along which 
hor husband had been borne, faint and bleeding, and she 
Tv'as directed to the room where he was lying. The door 
w^^is thrown o]^en and she entered. The President opened 
his eyes and saw who it was. Mrs. Garfield knelt by the 



174 COL. BOOK WELL'S STORT 

side of tlio bed and tlirew her arms around liim. " It is all 
right now," she exclaimed, "I am here." 

The President murmured an almost inaudible expression 
of love and returned her embrace as best he could. The 
single witness of the meeting was moved to tears, but Mrs. 
Garfield's bearing was such as to inspire confidence in those 
around her. She refused to entertain the idea that her 
husband might die. 

" IIow does she bear it?" asked the President to Mrs. 
James when Mrs. Garfield had left the room. 

"Noblj. She is full of courage," was Mrs. James' reply. 

" Tliank God for that," said the President, '' I would 
rather die than be the cause of bringing on a relapse of her 
illness." 

At this time the President was at the most critical state 
since the shooting. The physicians had abandoned all 
ho]ie of his living more than two or three hours at the 
most. The pulse was mounting higher and higher. There 
were signs of internal hemorrhage and the Temperature of 
the body constant!}'- increasing. The members of the Cabi- 
net were sending dispatches to different points announcing 
the speedy dissolution of the President. "Within tlie short 
space of half an hour, however, nature asserted herself, and 
the work of improvement began. 



Ccl. Rockwell's Story of the Attempted Assassination. 

Col. A. F. Rockwell, the Private Secretary of Gen. Gar. 
field and intimate friend of the President, gives the follow- 
ing account ol the attempted assassination: 

"The boys, James and Harry (sons of the President), 
started oft* in the President's carriage to pick up Dr. 
Hawks, their tutor, who was stopping on F street. The 
President had arranged the night before for Secretary 



OF THE ASSASSINATION. 176 

Blaine to call at the niausion to go to the depot with him. 
The Secretary came round in his own carriage. Mine was 
in reserve and followed just behind the Secretary's. I had 
several pieces of baggage to dispose of, and so drove directly 
to the baggage-room, and was getting the checks, when I 
heard a crack, crack, with an interval between the shots 
as long as it would take to cock a pistol. On the sill of 
the door leading from the ladies' parlor into the general 
reception room, or main hall, stood Secretary Blaine, call- 
ing for me and pointing to the would-be assassin, Guiteau. 
It was a terrible thought, but nevertheless one which 
flashed across my mind that the President had been shot* 
Quickly I had the President's carriage brought to the main 
door, the cushions arranged to make the President as com- 
fortable as possible, and was prepared to take him directly 
to the mansion. The physicians advised against it and for 
the best. After I had written from his dictation a toucii- 
ing telegram to his wife, and a hasty examination had been 
made up stairs, he was removed to the ambulance. The 
President put his hand in mine and the driver was cau- 
tioned to proceed slowly over the cobble-stone pavement 
until we reached the concrete at Seventh street. We had 
traveled but two squares from the depot when be asked, 
'How far are we now?' and in a subdued voice said: 'It 
hurts, oh! it hurts.' At Thirteenth street he again asked: 

"Where are we now?" 1 told him and he urged us to go 
a little faster. 

" It is impossible to describe Mrs. Garfield, the 
heroic wife and mother. She, too, realizes the restraint 
which the medical advisers have been compelled to put 
upon her visits to the President's bedside. The sympathy 
between them, the union of their hearts, impels the Presi- 
dent to want to exert himself, and then we have to protest, 
. and the good woman retires." 



170 COL. ROCKWELL'S STORT 

"It is true, that on tLe morning before the deed, the 
President turned a handspring over his bed!" 

•' It Nvas the morning before, this daj week, Jimmie, 
tliero the fellow sits," pointing to Private Secretary 
Brown's desk, ''came into his father's chamber half-dressed,, 
and in his nimble way turned a hands])ring over the ^ed 
and back again. ' See here, papa," he said, "if you were 
not so stout, you might do that, too, couldn't 3'ou? The 
Prescient kept 011 with his toilet, until Jim's bantering 
somewhat nettled him,. and, before the boy could realize it, 
the President had turned gracefully from one side of a large 
double bed to the o<"her, and came down with a thump on 
the floor. "There, my boy, the son is not greater than his 
father; now finish your dressing." "I suppose," continued 
the Colonel, "the -^tory was told to illustrate the strength 
and suppleness of the President at his age of life. Very 
feiv men of 50 years (for the President will be that old on 
the 9th day of November next) would care to undertake 
such a feat. But the story has a thrilling secret. You 
know, tlie ladies' room, where the shots were tired, is about 
twenty feet wide — that is, from the door-sill to the opposite 
hall. The a;sle-\vay leading to the main hall is formed by 
a double J'ovv of seats, heavily cushioned and of large frame 
work. 

"When the Pi-esident entered the depot with Secretary 
Blaine, he was in his cheeriest mood. He passed half ^\ ay 
down the aisle, Blaine preceding him a very few steps. 
Guitcau stood al the inside end of the row of seats near the 
main entrance on the left, when he tired the tirst shot, 
whi^h did the President no harm, for he turned to see from 
whence the sound came, and saw Guiteau advancing. He 
was preparing to leap over the seat, that is, he realized 
when he turned partially around that the man had fired at 
him. He instantly determined to attack the man. The 



OF THE ASSASSINATION. i7T 

next instant the President would liave been face to ftiee 
with Guiteau. His confidence in his ability to spring over 
the barri'-r, for the back of the seats is abont four feet 
high, flashed upon him, and his whole muscular strength 
was titralued for the act when he fell forward struck by the 
second shot. Guiteau was behind him. The instant he 
pulled the trigger the first time he stepped forward four 
feet. It was but the very fraction of a second between the 
explosion and the President's alarm. The fraction was on 
the side of the would-be assassin. 

His purpose was also to fire a second shot, and he stepped 
quickly foi'ward to get as near the President as possible. 
They were not six feet apart, so that the instant the Presi- 
dent realized the situation his intense activity of mind and 
muscle made him aggressive, and it was at that instant he 
received the staggering buHet and fell forward against the 
wainscoting of the reception-room, at the head of the aisle 
leading to the main hall. Till no.v the impression seems 
to have gained a hold that Guiteau's act was done so quickly 
that the President did'not comprehend what was going on. 
It is true, as I told you a while ago, that the reports of 
the firing were so close together that it could not have bee» 
longer than it would take to cock a pistol, yet during this 
time Guiteau was advancing and the President preparing 
to advance upon his assailant. 

Anyone who will take his watch and carefully observ^e 
the beats of the second-hand, will be surprised at the dis- 
tance one can get over in a second if impelled by a strong 
motive. The position in which Guiteau stood made it 
necessary for him to shoot at nearly an angle of 40 degrees 
while the position of the body of the President was also at 
about the same angle with the seats when the ball struck 
his right side. With this understanding of the position of 
the two, it is evident that the ball met with great 'resistance 

12 



178 INCIDENTS ON THE SICK-BED. 

and was deflected. Its natural course would have been 
through the body, passing out over the pelvis, so it is a 
reasonable theory that, upon entering the interior of the 
body, its force had been exhausted, and the internal injury 
is less than it was at first supposed. All of which gladdens 
US with increased hope and conviction that his recovery is 
now only a question of time." 



Scenes and Incidents on the Sick*Bed. 

" NOT so WELL AS I THOUGHT." 

One day before a chill, the President was speaking words 
of hope and enjoying the soft breeze tempered by the rays 
of the sun that flowed in so gratefully through the window. 
He had said: 

" I feel better. The r'gor yesterday was at the best but 
a trifle." The President asked what they were about to 
write of his condition. Bliss announced: 

" We are going to give the public good news to-day.' 

" You are not likely, responded the patient, to make it 
too strong. I feel ever so much better." 

" Directly afterwards the chill came. When the rigor 
passed there was no apparent rally on the part of the pa- 
tient, who lay exhausted in a stupor. For a time it seemed 
as if the end had really come, and that out of that state of 
unconsciousness the President would never awake. The 
treaiment, however, had its effect in time, although nearW 
three hours after the chill had gone by." 

Perspiration that followed the chill was profuse, but the 
mind was clear, and he seemed to bear up bravely, though 
aware of his condition. He said half jestingly, " I am not 
not 80 well as I thought I was, am I?" 

THE patient's WATCHFULNESS. 

When Dr. Bliss was taking the temperature one evening, 
an operation which consumes exactly ten minutes, he re- 



INCIDENTS OF THE SICK-BED. 179 

marked to General Swaim after nine minutes had passed: 

" I can't make it about normal." 

" Well," said the President, "you have just one minute 

more." 

The Doctor was surprised by the accuracy of the patient's 

information regarding the lapse of time. 

" How do you know?" he asked. 

In reply the President pointed to a little clock sitting on 
the mantel, a present from some friend the presence of 
which the Doctor had not discovered until that moment. 

LAST OF EARTH. 

General Swaim tells the story of the death-bed scene fro4n 
his own observations. He was General Garfield's watcher 
for the night, and Dr. Bliss had gone across the passage to 
liis own room to prepare for Swaim, before going to bed, a 
written memoranda of what was to be the treatment of the 
<;ase for the night. A few moments before ten o'clock, while 
the President was sleeping, Swaim put his hand under the 
bed-clothes, and finding that the patient's limbs were slightly 
cold he immediately applied warm cloths. At ten o'clock 
the President awoke from pain in the region of the heart, 
and placing his hand upon his left breast said: "I have a 
terrible pain," and asked for a glass of wate-r. Before the 
water could be handed to him he exclaimed: "Oh Swaim,'' 
and with his hand pressed upon his heart at once lost con- 
sciousness. 

Dr. Bliss and the other physicians were promptly sum- 
moned, and did what they could to revive him, although it 
was evident that death was upon him. He lay there, his 
breath passing in sighs. Mrs. Garfield stood there, a-id 
fully realizing the calamity that was present, said: "Why 
am. I called upon to bear this sorrow ?" At 10:35 life was 
•extinct, and Mrs. Garfield passed from the chamber. After- 
ward she returned and remained for two hours with the 
body of her dead husband. 



** 



189 



THE MEDICAL RECORD. 



THE MEDICAL RECORD. 

PULSE, TEMPERATURE AND RESPIRATION. 

The following table, compiled from the official bnlletins, shows 
the variations of tiie pulse, temperature and respiration uf I'resi- 
dent Gariield each day since he was wcunded. The highest pulse 
recorded, it will be seen, was l;iO, which was 60 pulsations above 
the normal rate of the patient, and the lowest was 94, which was 
24 pulsations too many. 



July 



■^.00 p 

y> p 

20 p 

45 a 



oo p 
45 P 
'5 a 
30 P 
45 P 
00 p 
30 a 
30 P 
30 p 
30 a 
30 p 
30 P 
'5 a 
00 p 
30 P 
30 a I 
30 P 
00 p 
30 a 
00 p 
30 P 



30 a 
00 p 
00 p 
30 a 
00 p 
00 p 
30 a : 
00 p 
00 |. 
30 a 
00 p 
30 a : 
CO p 

30 a 
00 p 
30 a 
00 I) 
30 a ; 
00 p 
30 a 
00 p 1 
30 a ; 
30 p 
00 a 
00 a 
30 p 





■n 


H 


?: 














R 


■c 






TJ 




3 




3 












































m 


140 






m 


12S 


99.1 


i'- 


III 


120 


9«. 






124 


98. 






115 






III 


114 


98. 


1^ 




1C4 






lU 


120 


100 


2t 




loS 


99.4 


II) 




no 


100. 


2v 


111 


I2f. 




2. 


n. 


124 


lOI. 


2. 


m 


114 


100. 5 


2. 


ni 


no 


101 


2. 


ID 


lo'j 




24 


III 


q« 


98.9 


23 




100 


99-7 


K-, 




104 


100. 


^■ 


in 


94 


99.1 


2; 




100 


108. 


-', 


III 


IOt> 


lOI. 2 


2! 


m 


qb 


99.2 


-.^ 


111 


It« 


J04. 


2J 


111 




loi 3 


2.: 


111 


lOO 


99.4 


24 




104 


IC'X. 2 


2-_ 


m 


108 




■2i 


111 


loO 




25 


III 


102 


105."; 


22 


III 


107 


101.4 


•-■J 


in 


qS 


q8.2 


24 


III 


i.->H 


99.8 


-.. 


III 


100 


102.8 


2^ 


ni 


^ 


09-6 




111 


100 


ICO. 8 


2.) 


III 


ro4 


102.4 


=4 


111 


QO 


gt;.-; 


20 


III 


02 


100.6 


i2 


III 




101.6 


-N 


111 


<yO 


9,1.8 


2-. 


III 


<M 


99-5 


2-' 


111 


q8 


loi. 


23 


m 


<)'> 


*S 


;8 


III 


94 


98., 


18 


111 


Q« 


100.4 


2C 


111 


go 


98 S 


18 


111 


154 


9i'.4 


!<; 


in 


qo 


98.4 


18 


m 


qh 


100 2 


20 


in 


<)B 


98.4 


lb 


ni 


UK 


100.7 


21 


111 




98. S 


18 


m 


•/' 


99.8 


18 


III 


<K> 


9t:.4 


18 


III 


C)« 


99-6 


19 


III 


B8 


.,8.4 


18 


in 


0<> 


99.9 


■9 


ni 


«8 


9«.4 


17 


in 


<» 


100.2 


K 


m 


t)2 


98.4 


19 


III 


lie 


IQI. I 


24 


ni 


IS-; 


I<iO. 4 


26 



August 



8.30 
7.00 
8.30 
7.00 
8.30 
7.00 
8.30 
7.00 
8.30 
7.00 

8 30 
7.00 
S. 30 



8.30 



P 11 

a m 

p 111 

ii m 

p in 

a m 

p 111 

a III 

p 111 

a m 

p m 

a Di 

p 111 

a m 
p ra 
a 111 
p ni 
a III 
P 111 
a m 
p m 
a in 
p III 
a Di 
p m 
a m 
p in 
I a 111 
i p m 
a ni 
)' 111 
a 111 
p in 
a in 
p in 
a ni 
p ni 
a m 
P m 
a m 
P n. 
a 111 
P m 
i'-. Ill 
P 111 
a in 
P ni 
a 111 
P ni 



loy. 7 
98.4 
99.8 



100. 7 
98.4 
98.5 
98.4 

100.5 
98.4 

106. 



P Ml 

a m 
P nil 



98. " 
! 101.2 
, 100. 8 



99.6 

98.9 
98.?. 
9S. 6 
98.8 

98.4 
100. 
98.4 



Sept. 



'. 30 a m 104 
i. 30 p ml no 
'■■ 30 a m 1 100 
i. .30 \> m 104 
!. 30 a ni 
'•30 P ml 
:. 39 u m 
.30 p 111 
'.30 a m|ioi 
.30 p m 
..30 a ml 120 
.30 p ni 
.30 a m 
..30 p ra 
.30 a m 
■30 p in 
■ 30 p ni 
• 3c> p in 



m 

'■'ji> p m 

.30 a m 
. 3'J P 111 
.30 a 111 
.30 p ni 

. 30 a 111 
'. Jf p in 
1. 30 a HI 
i.30 p ni 
1.30 a m 
.30 p ni 
. 3e a m 



. 30 a ill 
.C3 p ni 
.30 a m 



00 



98.4 
9/. 2 
9J. 5 
98.2 
98. 5 
99.8 
99.1 

9';».9 
98.4 

79. 9 
98.4 
99-7 
983 
100.5 

98. s 

99-5 
98.4 
9i.o 

9^.4 
99.4 
9d.4 
99.2 

98.6 

')8.4 
93. 
99-5 
99.8 
99-8 
24'joi,6 
■ 98 4 



109 



106 



104 



i. 30 p 111 

'.30 a 111 

^ .30 p m 

1.30 a m 

.30 p III 

. 30 a 111 

:.3^ P "> 



.31 a 111 

.-o p 111 

. ji a m 



98.7 
99- 
i-8.S 
9fc. 
99.4 
987 
9S S 
lOu. 
98 i 
99-- 
98..-. 
9.1.4 
98.4 
98.4 






98.8 
9S.2 



THE RUN TO LONG BRANCH. ISl 



The Ban to Lonsp Branch. 

Private Secretary Brown makes, in substance, the fol- 
lowing statement of the trip from Washington to the El- 
beron: 

Upon leaving the executive mansion the President 
seemed to enjoy the scenery and looked around inquiringly. 
He noticed several employes standing in front of the man- 
Bir.n and waved his hand to them, at the same time smiling 
as if it were very gratifying to him to leave the scene of his 
long illness. All the way to the depot he was a very anx- 
ious observer of everything, and this he was not prevented 
<ioing. Upon arrival at Sixth street and Pennsylvania 
avenue tlie patient was removed from the express wagon 
and placed on a spring mattress which had been prepared 
for his reception. 

The President experienced little or no disturbance in be- 
ing transferred from the vehicle to the car, and his pulse, 
although slightly accelerated, reaching about 115, fell to 
about 106 before the train started, and shortly after fell to 
104, and again to 102. 

The first stop of the train was made at Patapsco, at 
which point the parotid gland was dressed. 

The pessengers on the special train besides th : President 
were: Mrs. Garfield and Miss Mollie; C. O. Eockwell, 
the President's brother-in-law; Col. A. F. Eockwell, wife 
and daughter; Gen. D. G. Swaim, Secretary Brown, Col. 
H. C. Corbin and "Warren S. Young, assistant to Secretary 
Brown. The surgeons in charge, namely, D. "W. Bliss, J. 
K. Barnes, J. J. Woodward, Eobert Eeyburn and D. Hayes 
Agnew; nurses, Drs. S. S. Boynton and Edson; domestics, 



i8S THE RUN TO LONG BRANCH, 

Dane, Sprigg, Mary White, and Eliza Cutter; T. N. Ely^ 
Bnperintendent of motive power of the Pennsylvania rail- 
way, in charge of the train; Charles Watts, assistant in 
charge of the train; James T. Elder, chief inspector of air 
brakes; George Albright, inspector of air-brakes; J. P. 
Syster, carpenter; E. M. Berrell, porter of President Rob- 
erts' car, porter; Andrew James, assistant porter, and J. 
Sharp, assistant trainmaster of the Baltimore and Potomac 
railroad; William Page, engineer; E. Grinnell, fireman; 
J. Mason, fireman; G. K. Dean and James Kelly, brake- 
men on the Baltimore and Potomac. Extract of beef was 
adnainistered at 10:10 a. m. 

A stop of four minutes occurred at Lamokin for fuel,ti:& 
only time coal was taken in on the trip. At 10:30 a stop 
of five minutes was made at Gray's Ferry for water. Be- 
tween Philadelphia and Monmouth Junction the special 
train made several miles at the rate of seventy miles per 
hour. 

Bay Yiew was reached at 8:05, and a brief stop was^ 
made to enable the sursfcons to make a dressino' of the 
wound. It was found to have sufiered no derangement by 
travel. The dressing was soon accomplished, and the train, 
after leaving Bay View, was run at the rate of fifty miles 
an hour. The track in this locality is very straight, and in 
excellent condition, and, though the speed was at times 
greater than fifty miles an hour, the vibration of the Presi- 
dent's bed was no more than it would have been had the 
train been moving at twenty miles per hour. The attend- 
ing surgeons felt very much gratified with the manner in 
which the removal was conducted, and were generally of 
opinion that, with the exception of being slightly fatigued, 
the President would endure the journey exceedingly well. 

A gentleman who was on board the President's train said 
that when Philadelphia was passed Mrs. Garfield came into 



THE RUN TO LONG BRANCH. 183 

the car. The President was lying in a half doze, but seemed 
to recognize her presence, and immediately opened his eyea 
and said: "Well, Crete, this is quite a journey." 

" Do you feel any bad effects of the ride," she asked 
kindly. 

" Not a bit. This is many times better than the confine- 
ment of that horrible room in the White House." 

Before that, and while passing through Chester, he no- 
ticed from the elevation on which he lay, and which enabled 
him to look out through the window, a large crowd at the 
depot. It was, in fact, the only place where there was a 
crowd on the line of route. He was very much interested; 
in fact, his interest partook of the nature of excitement. 
Dr. Bliss stepped forward and dropped tlie curtain of the 
window. 

"Put it up," said Mr. Garfield, pettishly. "I want to 
Bee the people." 

At this time the train was running at the rate of fifty- 
five miles an hour. There are a number of switches here, 
and the only jolt that had been felt was experienced as the 
train dashed over the rails of the freight-yard at the north 
side of Washington. He placed his hand on his stomach 
and said: 

" It feels qualmish." 

The doctors were afraid that a recurrence of the vomiting, 
which boded such disastrous results, was about to come. 
He was given a considerable quantity of stimulaiit, and, 
under its influence, he fell asleep and rode fourteen miles 
in fourteen minutes, without waking. When he opened 
his eyes he said : 

"Where are we ? — halfway ?" 

Col. Rockwell who was beside him, said : " Yes, more 
than half way," and he replied : 



184 THE RUN TO LONG BRANCH. 

" "Well, this is the most interesting day I have had since 
I was shot." 

At Gray's Ferry, three miles south of Philadelpkia, the 
journals on the President's car had become so heated that 
it was necessary to repack them. When the train started 
again they were not to stop until they reached Freehold, 
sixty miles nearer tlie point of destination. 

Once, when traveling at the rate of sixty miles an hour, 
Dr. Bliss said to him : 

" Mr. President, if the movement affects you in any way, 
we will reduce the speed." 

" No," he answered, " let her go." 

Afterward Dr. Bliss remarked that we would stop and 
give him his bath. 

" No," said the President, " to get to the end of this trip 
is more important now than the bath." 

The President was given food regularly every two hours 
during the journey, but he had no enema given him. His 
food consisted of from two to foiw ounces of beef extract 
each time. 

A track 3,500 feet long had been laid from the regular 
station to tlie front door of the cottage where he was to stop. 
Although the sun was broiling hot and Long Branch has 
seldom experienced such sultriness, the long line of roads 
was lined with carriages, and with men and women on foot, 
of all ages and from every class in society, each bent on 
showing reverence to the President. It was known that he 
would not be seen, and the mere sight of a moving train 
would have drawn none of them, but it was a spontaneous 
movement on the part of all within reach to stand quietly 
and in a respectful attitude while the Nation's sufferer 
passed. The track had been laid not only to the gi'ounds, 
but through them and close up to the porch where he was 
to be received. 



THE ENGINEER'S STORY, 186 

Shortly after one o'clock the train was seen coming slowly 
jonnd the curve out from the apple orchard through which 
the branch track passes. When within two hundred feet 
of the cottage the train stopped. The last car, containing 
Mrs. Garfield, her daughter Mollie and Mrs. and Miss Eock- 
well, was uncoupled and pushed by the railroad laborers a 
little beyond the cottage. Then the President's car was de- 
tached, and a hundred citizens sprang forward and sur- 
rounded it. It was moved gently, and stopped right before 
the ocean-side entrance to the cottage at 1:31 p. m., having 
occupied almost exactly six hours in its trip from Washing- 
ton. First several utensils were taken out by attendants. 
At last all was ready, and the President was carefully lifted 
from the car on a stretcher, which was carried by the sur- 
geons into the cottage beneath canvas awnings which ran 
out from the entrance to the car and concealed the sight 
from the crowd, which soon began to disperse. 



The Engineer's Story. 

» 

William Page was the man who brought the President 
through safely from Washington to Long Branch. He was 
a most striking figure on the train as it pushed up in front 
of the Elberon. His long beard was floating in the wind, 
which was blowing in from the sea, and his swarthy face 
was covered with dirt and cinders. He stood erect and 
firm, and with an air of conscious pride in every feature, 
that showed he was conscious of a duty well performed. 

" Did she behave well to-day on the trip? " was asked. 

" Behave? Well I should say so. She seemed to feel all 



186 THE ENGINEERS STORY. 

that was required of her. When, on ordinary occasions, I 
take her over the road she starts off with a jerk like, and 
raising herself, and goes galloping down, puffing and snort- 
ing, but this morning she glided away as gentle as a lady's 
mare, and even when I put her to her best, and she went 
on at the rate of a mile in fifty-three seconds, she seemed to 
hold her breath." As he said this he leaned out of the cab 
and looked at his engine as kindly as a rider would his fav- 
orite horse. 

" Then you limited the speed to forty-five miles an hour, 
which was intended?" 

" Oh, no ! that you see, would only have been three- 
fourths of a mile to a minute, and a good deal of the way 
we made more than a mile a minute." 

" Did the doctors and the President know you were going 
at that speed ?" 

" They did not the first time I let her go ; and I'll tell 
you," he said, after a moment's hesitation, " how I came to 
do it. We left Washington at 6:37 this morning. We ran 
down to Patapsco, thirty-seven miles out, at a limited rate. 
There we stopped three minutes. This stop, like all the 
other stops made on the way up, were to change crews, to 
water, and allow the physicians to attend on the President. 
1 saw one of the attendctr- ts, I guess it was Col. Pockwell, 
coming down the platform, and I called out to him, ' How 
is the President?' You see though I was not sure who he 
was, I felt kind of safe in calling him Colonel. ' He is 
doing finely, Page,' came back the answer. 

' Does he feel the motion ? ' ' Not at all. Why, you are 
going as smoothly as a carriage over an asphalt pavement.' 

" Was it then you began to think of running a little 
faster?" 

"Well, yes; but as Bay view, our next stopping place, 
was only eight miles further, I did not try until we started 



THE ENGINEER'S STORY. 187 

from Bayview to Perryville, seventy-eight miles out from 
Washington. They sent word that the President had 
been doing better and better as the distance from the 
White House was increased, so I thought I would water the 
engines, ^nd, if she went smoothly, try one mile a little 
faster. Lamokin, the next halt, was forty-six miles further 
on. The engine behaved beautifully, and was half way be- 
tween Bayview and Lamokin. I went on with the trial, 
and went one mile in fifty-three seconds, 1 did not feel a 
jolt or jar as she went tearing down the track, but I knew 
then that if the President had a mind he might get the 
sea-breeze sooner. We stopped seven minutes at Lamokin. 
I called out to one of the attendants : ' Did you notice any 
extra motion when we were going faster?' 

a ' Why, no,' was the reply. Were we traveling faster 
than forty-five miles an hour?' 

" ' Yes, sir,' says I, ' we went one mile in fifty-three 
seconds.' 

" ' Well,' says he, ' I did not notice it, and I am sure the 
President did not. I will go and ask.' 

" Pretty soon I saw him coming down the platform, 

^" ' Whip her up, Page, whip her up,' he called out. The 
President did not feel any extra motion. They were all 
delighted to hear that we were getting along faster, and the 
President said: 'Tell him to go ahead, I want to get 
there,' 

" ' Does he continue to improve?' I asked. 

" * Yes, He said a short time ago : ' I feel as if I were 
on the road to recovery.' " 

" After these stops," was asked, " you went pretty much 
at the speed you thought best, according to your knowledge 
of the road?" 

" Pretty much as I thought best, and the engine behaved 
well right through to Elberon — yes sir, right straight 



188 TEE LAST DATS BULLETINS. 

throiigli. She ran more smoothly than she is rnnning now, 
and I warrant you'er not being much shaken at this mo- 
moment." 

" I suppose after this slie will be the most famous engine 
on the road ?" 

" Yes, sir, and she ought to be. I guess she has earned 
a National reputation to-day." 



The Last Day's Bulletins. 

The following bulletins were issued during the day on 
which the President died. The last one, it will be noticed, 
was sent at 10:10 p. m. At 10:35, the great and good man 
was dead. 

Elberon, N. J., Sept. 19, 9 A. M.— The condition of the Presi- 
dent this morning continues unfavorable. Shortly after the issue 
of the evening bulletin he had a chill lasting fifteen minutes. 
The febrile rise following continued until 12 midnight, during 
which time his pulse ranged from 112 to 130. The sweating that 
followed was quite profuse. The cough, which was quite trouble- 
some during the chill, gave him but little annoyance the remainder 
of the night. This morning at 8 o'clock his temperature is 98.8, 
pulse, 108 andfeebie; respiration, 22. At 8:30 another chill came 
on, on account of which the dressing was temporarily postponed. 
A bulletin will be issued at 12 :30 P. M. D. W. Bliss, 

D. Hates Agnew. 

12 :30 P. M.— The chill f «)m which the President was suffering 
at the time the morning bulletin was issued lasted about fifteen 
minutes, and \^s followed by febrile rise of temperature and 
sweating. He has slept much of the time, but his general condi- 
tion has not materially changed since. Temperature, 98.2 ; pulse, 
104; respiration. 20. D. W. Bliss. 

D. Hayes Agnew. 

2 P. M.— Dr. Boynton says the President is perceptibly weaker 



THB DEATH-BED SCENE. 18C 

than yesterday. There was considerable mental disturbance last 
night, and there has been more or less delirium to-day. There is 
nothing encouraging to report so far this afternoon. He taJtes 
his nourishment and stimuleuts as usual. 

6 P. M.— Though the gravity of the President's condition con- 
tinues, there has been no aggravation of the symptoms since the 
noon bulletin was issued. He has slept mosD of the time, cough- 
ing but little and with more ease. The sputa remains unchange^L 
A sufficient amount of nourishment has been taken and retained. 
Temperature, 98.4 ; pulse, 102; respiration, 18. 

6:40 P. M. — In an interview a few minutes ago, Attorney-General 
MacVeagh said there wereno new grounds for hope, and the Pres- 
ident could not last long in his present weak condition. He is 
weaker now than at any time, and the Attorney-General has the 
gi'eatest apprehensions. The mind of the President has been per- 
fectly clear all day. There is no reason now to believe he will 
have another chill. The Attorney-General says he understands 
every precaution has been taken during the day to prevent recur- 
rence of the rigors. At 6:30 Miss Mollie Garfield was walking on 
the lawn with several ladies. 

7:25 P. M. — Dr. Agnew said he does not feel much encouraged 
by the evening bulletin. The case is still critical 

THE LAST WHILE ALIVB. 

10:10 P. M.— The President thus far has passed a comfortabl* 
night. He is now sleeping with pulse at 120 and no indicfttions of 
another chill. 



The Death-Bed Scene. 

The death-bed scene of the President was a pfscnliarly 
sad and impressive one. As 8i>on as the dov.tors felt there 
was no longer hope, the members of the family assembled. 
Dr. Bliss stood at the head of the bed with his hand on 
the pulse of the patient, and consulted in low whispers 
■with Dr. Agnew. The Private Setiretai;/ stood on the 



190 THE DEATH-BED SCENE. 

opposite side of the bed, with Mrs. Garfield at the bedside, 
she at times leaning on his arm. Miss Lulu liockwell and 
Miss Mollie Garfield came into the room at the time the 
President lost consciousness. Afterward they went into 
the hall, the door of which remained open, and waited 
there. What conversation was had was conducted in whis- 
pers. Those about the bed occasionally went Into the cor- 
ners of the room and spoke to each other. The solemnity 
of the occasion fully impressed itself upon tliem. There 
was no sound heard except the gasping for breath of the 
sufferer, whose changing color gave indications of the near 
approach of the end. 

LAST WORDS. 

After he had repeated " It hurts," he passed into a state 
of unconsciousness, breathing heavily at times, and then giv- 
ino- a slight indication that breath v»as still in his body. 
The only treatment that was given was hypodermic injec- 
tions of brandy by Dr. Agnew, assisted by Dr. Boynton. 
Occasionally they spoke with Dr. Bliss in quiet whispers. 
The President suffered no pain after the time he placed his 
hand upon his heart. He passed a-way almost quietly. 
The time between life and death was not marked by any 
physical exhibition or any word. There was absolutely no 
scene. The intervals between the gaspings became longer, 
and presently there was no sound. Everyone present knew 
death had come quickly, without pain. When it became 
evident that he was dead, Mrs. Rockwell placed her arm 
around Mrs. Garfield and led her quietl}' from the room. 
She uttered no word. One by one the spectators left the 
scene, the doctors only remaining in the room, and tlie 
windows were closed. 



THE AUTOPSY. 1»1 

AKOUND THE DEATH-BED. 

The following persons were present when the President 
breathed his last : Drs. Bliss and Agnew, Mrs. Garfield 
and her daughter Mollie, Col. Rockwell, O. C. Rockwell, 
Gen. Swaim, Dr. Boynton, Private Secretary J. Stanley 
Brown, Mrs. and Miss Rockwell, Executive Secretary 
Warren Young, H. L. Atchison, Jolin Ricker, S. Lancaster 
and Daniel Spriggs, attendants — the last named colored. 

Mrs. Garfield sat in her chair shaking convulsively, and 
with the tears pouring down her cheeks, but uttering no 
sound. After a while she arose, and, taking hold of her 
dead husband's arm, smoothed it up and down. Poor 
little Mollie threw herself upon her father's shoulder on 
the other side of the bed, and sobbed as if her heart would 
break. Everybody else was weeping. At midnight Mrs. 
Garfield was asked if she would like to have anything done, 
and whether she desired to have the body taken to Wash- 
ington. She replied that she could not decide until she 
became more composed. 



The Autopsy. 



It was 3 o'clock when the special train which had gone 
to Sea Girt to meet the physicians summoned from Wash- 
ington to attend the autopsy arrived at Elberon. The 
surgeons, Drs. Reyburn, Barnes, Woodward, and Lamb 
were driven at once to the hotel, and, after a short consul- 
tation with the other doctors, it was decided to proceed 
with the autopsy at once, as the sun was already declining 
in the West, and it was desirable to perform the work 



192 TEE AUTOPSr. 

during the daylight. The physicians, therefore, proceeded 
at once to their work. At 4 o'clock tlie body was laid out 
for the examination. There were present Drs. Agnew, 
Bliss, Barnes, Reyburn, Woodward, and Lamb. The ex- 
amination proved a slow and dangerous one, the poisonous 
condition of the flesh, notwithstanding being carefully 
prepared for the work, rendering it exceedingly dangerous 
to liandle. It was fourteen minutes to 8 o'clock before the 
physicians concluded their work. They then came out to 
lunch, and returned to prepare their report. 

THE OFFICIAL REPORT. 

Elberon, N. J., Sept. 20. — The following official bul- 
letin was prepared at 11 o'clock to-night by the surgeona 
who have been in attendance upon the late President: 

By previous arrangement the post raortem examination of the 
body of President Garfield was nuide tliis afternoon in the pres- 
ence and with the assistance of Drs. Hamilton, Agnew, Bliss, 
Barnes, Woodward, Reyburn, Andrew H. Smith, of Elberon, and 
Acting Assistant Surgeon D, S. Lamb, of the Army Medical 
Museum, "Washington. 

The operation was performed by Dr. Lamb. 

It w;is found that the ball, after fracturing the right eleventh 
rib, had passed tlirough the spinal column in front of the spinal 
canal, fracturing the body of the first lumbar vertebriE, driving a 
number of small fragments of boue into the adjacent soft parts, 
aod lodging just below the pancreas, about two inches and a half 
to the left of the s})ine and behind the peritoneum, where it had 
become completely encysted. 

The immediate cause of death was secondary hemorrhage from 
one of the mesenteric arteries adjoining the track of the ball, the 
bkod rupturing the peritoneum, and nearly a pint of blood es- 
caping into the abdominal cavity. 

This hemorrhage is believed to have been the cause of the 
•evere pain in the lower part of the chest, complained of just 
before death. An abscess cavity, six inches by four in dimen- 
8io»i8, was found in the vicinity of the gall bladder, between the 
llrer and the transverse colon, which were strongly inter-adherent. 



THE MOTHER AND HER DEAD SON. 193 

It did not involve the substance of the liver, and no communica- 
tion was found between it and the wound. 

A long suppurating channel extended from the external wound 
between the loin muscles and the right kidney almost to the right 
groin. This channel, now known to be due to the burrowing of 
pus from the wound, was supposed, during life, to have been the 
track of the ball. 

On examination of the organs of the chest, evidences of sever© 
bronchitis were found on both sides, with broncho-pneumonia of 
the lower portions of the right lung, though of much less extent 
of the left. 

The lungs contained no abscesses and the heart no clots. The 
liver was enlarged and fatty, but free from abscesses ; nor were 
any found in ons other organ, except the left kidney, which con- 
tained near its surface a small abscess about one-third of an inch 
in diameter. In reviewing the history of the case in connection 
with the autopsy, it is quite evident that the different suppu- 
rating surfaces, and especially the fractured spongy tissue of the 
vertebra, furnish suflScient explanation of the septic condition 

which existed. D. W. Bliss, 

J. K. Barnes, 
J. J. Woodward, 
Kobt.'Reyburn, 
Frank H. Hamilton, 
D. Hayes Agnew. 
Andrew H. Smith, 
D. S. Lamb, 



The Mother and Her Dead Son. 

Mother Garfield, who was at Solon, Ohio, with her daugh- 
ter Mrs. Larrabee, watched anxiously for the 6 o'clock bul- 
letin Monday evening, feeling, if it was favorable, that she 
might hope on. Worn out by anxious days and sleepless 
nights, her strength became so exhausted that the admiuia- 
tration of stimulants was found necessary. Though hoping 
against hope, she could not realize that her son was in im- 

18 



104 THE MOTHER AND HER BEAD SON. 

mediate danger. " He will live," she said but yesterday. 
" God makes so few men like hira that he will not take them 
away when they are living lives of usefulness. There are 
80 many who are of no use to any one who live on that 1 
cannot believe God will take my James away w^hen he is 
much needed." 

Shortly after eight o'clock Tuesday morning Mrs. Gar- 
field arose, and after dressing, spent some time reading her 
Bible, as customary. Then she went into the dining-room 
where her breakfast was being prepared. Refreshed by a 
night of rest, she was more cheerful than for several days. 
Mr. Larrabee, unable to conceal his emotion, left the room 
in tears. Mother Garfield walked about, looking out of the 
windows. Finally she t«rned to her daughter, saying : " Is 
there any news yet this morning, Mary ?" Mrs. Larra- 
bee's heart failed. She could not blast the hope expressed 
in that voice and exhibited in that dear old face. 

" Eat your breakfast, mother, it is ready now," she said. 

" But I want to hear from James first," said the loving 
mother. 

The telegram that was soon to bring grief and anguish to 
her hopeful heart lay on the shelf, and seeing it she took it, 
and was about to read, saying, " Here it is now, I must read 
it before I eat." 

Her grand-daughter, Ellen Larrabee, fearing that so sud- 
den a shock would be fatal, took the dispatch from her hand, 
and said, " I will read it to you grandma. Are you pre- 
pared for bad news ?" 

"Why, no," said grandma, "I am not prepared for bad 
news, and there isn't any bad news this morning, is there ?" 

" Yes, grandma." 

"Oh, Nelly, he is not — he cannot be dead ?" 

"Grandma, his spirit passed away last night." 

« Oh, it cannot be; it must not be. I cannot have it so. 



THE MOTHER AND HER DEAD SON. 195 

My James, my James dead I I cannot believe yon. Let 
me see the dispatch." 

The dispatch read as follows: 

•• Elbbron, N. J.. Sept. 19. 

*• Mrs. Eliza Garfield : 

" James died this evening at 10:58. He calmly breathed his life 
•way. " D. G. Swaim," 

She took and read it, dropped the message on the floor, 
and fell backward into the chair, moaning and wringing her 
hands, and bitter tears conrsing down her cheeks. For 
some time she gave way to uncontrollable grief, but at 
length subdued her feelings in a measure. 

Mother Garfield then said: " To-morrow I will be eighty 
years old, but I will not see the beginning of another year; 
James is gone, and I shall not be long after him." 

After that she succeeded in somewhat controlling her 
emotions until the arrival of James Palmer, husband of a 
grand-daughter now dead, a daughter of Mrs. Larrabee. 
When he entered she again burst into tears, and between 
sobs repeated, over and over, in her anguish: " He is gone; 
he is gone. O, I cannot have it so." 

When the morning paper arrived, although advised by 
her daughter not to read it, she insisted on it, and eagerly 
scanned the dispatches for awhile, and then, throwing it 
down, exclaimed, " I cannot read any more." 

Then she went to her room and laid down, but soon arose 
and requested a grand-daughter to read to her further, 
listening with blinded eyes and a breaking heart, making 
noble efibrt to restrain her emotions. 

During the afternoon somebody remarked to her that it 
seemed very still to-day. 

"Still ?" responded she. '' Yes, but it is the stillness of 
death." 

Mr. Larrabee, the President's brother-in-law, said he had 
known James A. Garfield since he was three years old, and 



1»6 IN THE FRANC KLYN COTTAGE. 

added: "One thing gives me slight comfort to-day — my be- 
lief that he was a sincere and earnest Christian if ever there 
was one. 



In the Francklyn Cottage at Long Branch. 

At half-past nine o'clock Chief Justice Waite, Secretary 
and Mrs. Blaine, Secretary and Mrs. Windom, Secretary 
and Mrs. Hunt, Postmaster-General and Mrs. James, and 
Secretaries Lincoln and Kirkwood, and Attorney-General 
McYeagh arrived at the Francklyn Cottage, and the doors 
were closed to visitors. Religious services were conducted 
by the Rev. Charles J. Young, of Long Branch, at the re- 
quest of Mrs. Garfield. There were present, besides the 
family and their attendants, members of the Cabinet, their 
wives, and a few personal friends, numbering in all not 
more than fifty. When the moment for the services was 
announced, the windows and doors were closed, and the 
most solemn silence prevailed. 

" The Scripture reads," said the pastor, " Blessed are the 
dead who die in the Lord. Yea, saith the spirit, that they 
may rest from their labors, and their works do follow 
them." " We know that if our earthly house of this taber- 
nacle were dissolved, we have a building of God — a house 
not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens. Therefore, 
we are also confident of knowing that whilst we are at home 
in tlie body we are absent from the Lord. We are confi- 
dent, I say, and willing, rather, to be absent from the body, 
and to be present with the Lord. For me to live is Christ, 
and to die is gain. I am in the strait betwixt the two, 
hftTing a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is 



IN THE FRANC KLYN COTTAGE. 107 

far better. There the wicked cease from troubling, and 
there the weary are at rest; and there shall be no more 
death, neither sorrow nor crying; neither shall there be any 
more pain; and there shall be no night there, and they 
need no candle, neither the light of the sun, for God giveth 
them light, and they shall reign forever and ever. Behold, 
I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we 
shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an 
eye, at the last trump. For this corruptible must put on 
incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 
So when this corruptible shall have put on incorrup- 
tion, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, 
then sliall be brought to pass the saying that is writ- 
ten: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is 
thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of 
death is sin; the strength of sin is the law; but thanks be 
to God who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ. Let us pray. 

THE PRATER. 

O, Thou, who walked through the grave of Bethany — 
that open grave of the brother in Bethany! O, Thou, who 
hadst compassion on the widow of Nain — she bore her be- 
loved dead! O, Thou, who art the same yesterday, to-day, 
and forever; in whom is no variableness nor shadow of 
turning! have mercy upon us in this hour, when our souls 
have nowhere else to fly. But we fly to Thee. Thou 
knowest these sorrows that we bow under. O, Thou God 
of the widow, help the stricken heart before Thee. Help 
these cliildren, and those that are not here. Be their father. 
Help her in the distant State who watched over him in 
childhood. Help this Nation that is to-day bleeding and 
bowed in sorrow before Thee. Oh, sanctify this heavy 
chastisement to its good. Help those associated with him 



198 THE BODY IN STATE AT WASHINGTON. 

in the Government. O Lord, grant from the darkness of 
this night of sorrow there may arise a better day for the 
glory of God and the good of man. We thank Thee for the 
record of life that is closed; for its heroic devotion to prin- 
ciple. We thank Thee, O Lord, that he was Thy servant; 
that he preached Thee by a noble life and example, and 
that we can say of him now, " Blessed are the dead who die 
in the Lord; their works do follow them." Kow, Lord, go 
with this sorrowing company in this last sad journey. 
Bear them up and strengthen them. O God, bring us all 
at last to the morning that has no shadows ; the house that 
has no tears ; the land that has no death ; for Christ's sake- 
Amen." 



The Body in State in the Eotnnda at Washington. 

The day was very warm, and the sun poured down with- 
out mercy on those who stood in the line waiting their turn 
to enter the rotunda. By 1 o'clock the double line was 
over half a mile long. From the door of the rotunda two 
ropes extended across the porch and formed a passageway 
beginning a hundred feet from the foot of the steps. From 
this point the line continued in a serpentine course, zigzag- 
ging back and forth, until it reached a street, and then ran 
from First to Second streets. By reason of the curious wind- 
ing form of this closely packed double column, its actual 
length was more than twice that of the distance in a direct 
line which was covered. As the crowds continued to arrive, 
they either took their places at the end of the line as it 
moved slowly along, or formed part of the great multitude 
of onlookers who, on account of the great length of the line, 
had despaired of entering it. 



THE BODY IN STATE AT WABHINQTON, 100 

It was a motley throng. More than half of those who 
Btood here for hours and reached the Capitol by slow shuf- 
fling steps over the asphalt, were black. 

There were men, women, children, and infants in arms, 
the infirm and aged cripples from the war, some of them 
wearing badges of service, and ladies in Swiss muslin 
dresses, and young girls in pretty costumes, along with 
ragged street urchins and a few tramps. The weak and 
crippled old darkies in whose faces reverence and awe were 
expressed, hobbled on crutches and canes with difficulty up 
the broad marble steps. 

The sight of their sincere mourning was pathetic. There 
was no levity, and but little conversation as tlie patient 
line dragged its slow length along. Those who early in 
the morning started at the extremity of the line did not 
reach the rotunda until three weary hours later, and yet 
they moved along up the steps of the Capitol at the rate of 
6,000 persons an hour, and this was continued from very 
early in the morning all through the hot day. 

It is believed that over one hundred thousand persons 
viewed the remains of the late President while they lay in 
the rotunda. 

A short time before the coffin was closed, Mrs. Secretary 
Blaine and Mrs. Secretary Windom entered the rotunda 
and viewed the remains. Both were shocked at the change, 
and suggested to the gentlemen composing the guard of 
honor that the casket be closed at once. This, they re- 
plied, could not be done without an order from the Cabinet. 
In a short time the order came. Two thousand were in 
line, and for half an hour they continued to pass the bier 
before it became generally knoAvn among the thiong out- 
side that the face could no longer be seen. When the coffin 
lid was closed the beautiful floral offering of Queen Victoria 
was placed above it. 



too SERVICES AT THE VAULT IN CLEVELAND. 
Services at the Vault in Cleveland. 

THE SCENE. 

The State militia were stationed at the entrance to the 
cemetery and on either side of the driveways leading to the 
vault. The steps leading to the vault were carpeted with 
flowers, and on either side of the entrance were an anchor 
of tuberoses and a cross, while smilax and evergreens were 
festooned above. A heavy black canopy was stretched over 
the steps from which the exercises were to be conducted. 
At 3:30 o'clock the procession entered the gateway, which 
was arched over with black, with appropriate inscriptions. 
In the keystone were the words: " Come to rest." On one 
Bide were the words : " Lay him to rest whom we have 
learned to love." On the other: "Lay him to rest whom 
we have learned to trust." A massive cross of evergreens 
•wung from the centre of the arch. 

The United States Marine Band, continuing the sweet 
mournful strains it had kept up during the entire march, 
entered first. Then came the Forest City Troop, of Cleve- 
land, which was the escort of the President to his inaugura- 
tion. Behind it came the funeral car with its escorts of 
twelve United States artillerymen, followed by a battalion 
of Knights Templar and the Cleveland Grays. The 
mourners' carriages and those containing the guard of 
honor comprised all of the procession that entered the 
grounds. The cavalry halted at the vault and drew up in 
line, facing it with sabres presented. 

At 3 :30 the great funeral car drawn to the front and a 
little beyond the vault. The twelve black horses, covered 
with heavy folds of black drapery move so slowly that the 
tread of their feet can hardly be heard, and the wheels of 
the huge somber cab pass noiselessly over the soft road- 
way. 



SERVICES AT THE VAULT IN CLEVELAND. 201 

All that is left now to complete the final act of the great 
tragedy occupies but twenty-five minutes, and the scene is 
as solemnly sad as the burial of the great dead must be, but 
fitly. It happens that no manifestations of violent grief 
disturb the last scene in the burial of this pure and gentle 
man. 

The carriage, which carries on one seat, side by side, the 
mother and the wife of the President, and on the front seat 
three of his boys, Harry, Jimmie, and the little Abram, is 
drawn up on the carpet of flowers at the very door of the 
vault. Harry and Jimmie, the two older boys, get out and 
stand upon either side of the carriage doorway, with faces 
that are so white as to startle those who look upon them. 
They remain motionless as they watch the coffin of their 
father carried to its resting-place. Mrs. Garfield takes the 
vacant seat, and side by side the face of the grand old 
mother and the brave wife are seen in the open doorway of 
the carriage. As the military escort lifts the coffin from 
the car the band play " Nearer My God to Thee." They 
watch with strained eyes the passage of the body to the 
tomb and until it is lost to sight within, when Mrs. Gar- 
field drops her veil and sinks back upon her seat, but the 
old mother still watches at the window, and her beautiful 
but calm, sweet face, is a picture there which the people 
watch in loving, sympathetic interest until the benediction 
is pronounced. 

After the body is laid upon its bower of roses, the pall- 
bearers range themselves upon each side of the raised en- 
trance to the vault. Behind them upon the right Mr. 
Blaine stands, with a few Senators and others who were in 
the near carriages. In front of this line Swaim, Rockwell, 
tind Corbin stand, nearest Marshal Henry, who is one of the 
pall-bearers. Harry and Jimmie leave their mother's car- 
riage and remain near them. On the other side, behind the 



202 HERVICES AT THE VAULT IN CLEVELAND. 

opposite line of pall-bearer", Hinsdale, Errett, and Jones 
are seen, while on the lower ground to the right C. O 
Rockwell and wife, Mrs. Garfield's sister, and Dr. Boynton 
take position. The rest of the relatives and friends remain 
in their carriages under the drizzling rain. From one of 
them, near Mrs. Garfield, the calm, restful face of her 
father, Uncle Zeb Rudolph, can be seen. 

The ceremonies which followed were of the briefest kind. 
It is a subject ol congratulation among all that the last mo- 
ments at the cemetery were so quiet "and full of gentle silence. 
It was not to Mrs. Garfield the burial of her husband. 
Sometime she will bury him, when he shall be taken from 
the vault, and unattended by pomp or the presence of the 
curious multitude, and laid in his last resting place. She 
only saw him laid upon a bed of flowers, to stop a little 
longer before he is laid on the high hill near by that she 
has chosen for the long rest. 

J. II. Robinson, as President of the day, opened the ex- 
ercises by introducing the Rev. J. H. Jones, Chaplain of 
the Forty- second Regiment O. Y. Infantry, which General 
Garfield commanded, as follows: "The Rev. J. H. Jones, 
the Chaplain of the Forty-second Regiment, who went out 
with General Garfield, will offer some remarks." Mr. 
Jones said: 

THE chaplain's ADDRESS. 

Our illustrious friend has completed his journey's end, a 
journey that we must all soon make, and that in the near 
future; yet, when I see the grand surroundings of this oc- 
casion I am led to enquire was this man the son of an 
emperor, of the king that wore a crown, for in the history 
of this great country there has been nothing like this seen 
by the people, and perhaps no other country. Yet I 
thought, perhaps, speaking after the manner of men, that 



SERVICES AT THE VAULT IN CLEVELAND. 208 

he was a prince, and this was offered in a manner after 
royalty. 

He was not, ray friends. It is not an offering of a king, 
it is not as we are taught an offering to earthly kings and 
emperors. Though he was a prince and a freeman, the 
great commoner of the United States, only a few miles from 
where we stand, less than fifty years ago, he was born in the 
primeval forests of this State and in this county, and all 
he asks of you now is a peaceful grave in the bosom of the 
land that gave him birth. 

I cannot speak to you of his wonderful life and his work. 
TimQ forbids and history will take care of that, and your 
children's children will read of this emotion when we have 
passed away from this earth, but let me say when I was 
permitted with these honorable men to go to Pittsburg as 
a committee to receive his mortal remains, I saw from that 
city to Cleveland hundreds and thousands of people, and 
many of them in tears, and this reflection came to me, that 
there was a dearth over the lands. The soil for 500 miles 
was moistened with tears, as we passed from the city of 
Washington to Cleveland. Then I asked myself the mean- 
ing of all this, for I saw the workingmen come out of the 
rolling-mills, with dust and smoke all over their faces, their 
heads'uncovered, with the tears rolling down their brawny 
cheeks. 

With bated breath I asked: What is the meaning of all 
this? because it casts down a workingman. He was a 
workingraaTi himself, for he has been a worker from his 
birth almost. He has fought his way through life at every 
step, and the workingman he took by the hand, and there 
was sympathy and brotherhood between them. I saw, in 
small cottages as well as in splerdid mansions, drapings on 
the shutters, and may have been the only vail which the poor 
woman had, and with tears in her eyes she saw us pass. I 



204 SERVICES AT THE VAULT IN CLEVELAND. 

asked. Why, what interest has this poor woman in this 
man? She liad read that he was born in a cabin, and that 
when he grot old enouo^h to work in the beech woods he 
helped to support his widowed mother. 

Then I saw the processions and the colleges pour out. 
The local professions attended, and there were civic societies 
and military all concentrated here, and he has touched them 
all in his passage thus far through life, and you feel that 
he is a brother. He is, therefore, a brother to you in all 
these regards, but when a man dies his work usually fol- 
lows him. When we sent General Garlield to the Capitol 
at Washington he weighed 210 pounds. He had a soul 
that loved his race; a splendid intellect that almost bent 
the largest form to bear it. You bring him back to us a 
mere handful of some eighty pounds, mostly of bones, in 
that casket. 

Now, I ask you why is this? I do not stop to talk about 
the man that did the deed. " Vengeance is mine, saith 
the Almighty God; I will repay." He sees the terrors of 
a scaffold before him, probably, and the eternal disgrace 
that falls to the murderer and the assassin, and he is going 
down to the judgment of God and the frowns of the world. 

But where is James A. Garfield that we lent to you 
seven months ago? Many of you were there at the time of 
his inauguration, and witnessed the grandest pageant that 
ever passed in front of the Capitol, and the grandest that 
was ever had in the JSTation was had on that occasion, and 
now comes that unwelcome but splendid exhibition that 
will be read of all over the world with regret. For Secre- 
tary Blaine, in a business-like manner, to-day made out 
that there were at least 300,000,000 ot people of the world 
mourning the death of President Garfield and offering us 
sympathy. But where is he? Here is all that is left of 
him, the grand, the bright, and brilliant man. Now that 



SERVICES AT THE VAULT IN CLEVELAND. 205 

soul tnat lOved, that mind that thought, and has impressed 
itself upon the world, must come back, for if thoughts live 
will that precious thought cease to be dead. In reason he 
speaks and in example lives. His thoughts and mighty 
deeds still flourish in structure. We shall get him back, 
fellow citizens. 

In conversation with the one nearest and dearest to him. 
she said, when she thought of his relations as a husband 
and as a son and as a statesman, having reached the highest 
pinnacle to which man can be elevated by the free suffrage 
of our 50,000,000 people,- there was no promotion tor her 
beloved but for God to call him home. He has received 
that promotion. 

He believed in the immortality, not only of the soul, but 
of the body and that the grave will give up the dead. He 
must live, and, my friends, that was the hope that sustained 
him. I was with him in the war, and the enemy never saw 
his back. He was fortunate in that every contest he was 
on the victorious side, but the grandest tight he ever made 
was in the last eighty days of his existence, fought not be- 
cause he himself personally expected to live, but the doc- 
tors told him to hope. 

He loved his wife and children, and he hoped. " I am 
not afraid to die, but I will try," said he, " to live," and 
then he was not conquered even except by simple exhaus- 
tion. It seems to me that no good man by the name of 
Abraham can be the President of the United States and 
can be long out of Abraham's bosom, for both of them have 
been called, and early, too, to the paradise of God, and his 
spirit looks down upon us to-day, and he is in the society 
of Washington and Lincoln and the immortal hosts-of pat- 
riots that stood for their country. 

Let me say, in conclusion, there was a man in ancient 
Biblical history that kiUed more in his death than he did 



206 SERVICES AT THE VAULT IN CLEVELAND. 

in his life, and I believe that to be true with James Abram 
Garfield, I doubt whether there is a page that equals this 
in sympathy and love, not only in this country, but all 
over the world. Have you ever read anything like this. 
You, brethren, here of the South, I greet you to-day, and 
you brethren of the North, East, and West. Come, let us 
lay all our bitterness up in the cofiin of the dead man. Let 
him carry them with him to the grave in silence, till the 
ano-els disturb the slumbers. Let us love each other more, 
our country better. May God bless you and the dear fam- 
ily, and, as they constitute a great family on earth, I hope 
they will constitute a great family in the kingdom of God, 
and where I hope to meet you all in the end. 

At tTie close of Jones' address the venerable Dr. Robin- 
eon announced that the hymn which was General Garfield's 
favorite, " Ho, Reapers of Life's Harvest," would be sung, 
and, as the melody of the grand old song rings and echoes 
among the forests and hills, it falls upon the ears of all. 

GARFIELD'S FAVORITE HYMN. 

Ho, reapers of life's harvest. 

Why stand with rusted blade 
Until the night draws round thee 

And the day begins to fade? 

Why stand ye idle waiting 
For reapers more to come? ' 

The golden morn is passing, 
Why sit ye idle, dumb? 

Thrust in your sharpened sickle 

And gather in the grain; 
The night, is fast approaching 

And noon will come again. 

The Master calls for reapers, 

And shall he call in vain ? 
Shall sheaves lie thei^e ungathered 

And waste upon the plain ? 



SERVICES AT THE VAULT IN CLEVELAND. 3^fJ 

. Mount up the heights of wisdom 
And crush each error low ; 
Keep back no words of knowledge 
That human hearts should know. 

Be faithful to thy mission 

In service of thy Lord, 
And then a golden chaplet 

Shall be thy just reward. 

Once during Chaplain Jones' address, and in the midst 
of his masterly review of the march of the dead from the 
lofi: cabin to the Presidency, the face of Mrs. Garfield 
appeared at the window by the side of the .mother of 
Garfield, and both looked, with calm, clear eyes, upon the 
speaker as he told the story of their hero's achievements. 

The Latin Ode from Horace was then sung as follows, 
by the United German Society : 

Integer vitae scelerisque purus 
Non eget Mauris jaculis neque arcu. 
Nee venenatis gravida.sagittis, 

Fusee, pharetra, 
Sive per Syrtes iter aestuosas, 
Sive facturus per inhospitalem 
Caucasum, vel quae loca fabulosus 

Lambit Hydaspes. 
Namque me silva lupus in Sabina, 
Dum meum canto Lalagen et ultra 
Terminum curis va^or expeditis, 

Fugit inermera : 
Quale portentum neque militaris 
Daunias latis alit aesculetis, 
Nee Jubae tellus generat, leonum 
Arida nutrix. 
i Pone me pigris ubi nulle campis 

Arbor aestlva recreatur aura, 
Quod latus mundi nubulae malusque 

Jupiter urget. 
Pone sub curru nimium propinqui 
Solis, in terra doraibus negata; 
Dulce ridentein Lalagen araabo, 
Dulce loquentem. 



208 Sh'/illCliS AT 'i'llK VAULT IJS CLEVELAND. 

The ibllowiiig is a literal translation of the ode: 

The man of upright life and pure from wickedness, O Fuscus 
has no need of the Moorish javelins or bow, or quiver loaded with 
poisoned darts. Whether he is about to make his journey through 
the sultry Syrtes or the inhospitable Caucasus, or those places 
which Hydaspes, celebrated in story, washes. For lately, as I was 
singing my Lalage, and wandered beyond my usual bounds, devoid 
of care, a wolf in the Sabine wood fled from me, though I was 
unarmed; such a monster as neither the warlike Apulia nourishes 
in its extensive woods, nor the land of Juba, the dry nurse of 
lions, produces. Place me in those barren plains, where no tree 
is refreshed by the genial aiv; at that part of tlie world which 
clouds and an inclement atmosphere infest. Place me under the 
chariot of the too-neighboring sun, in the land deprived of habita- 
tion, there will 1 love my sweetly-smiling, sweetly-speaking 
Lalas?e. 

Mr. Kobinson then announced the late President's hymn, 
" Ho, lleapers of Life's Harvest," which the German vocal 
societies of Cleveland sang with marked efiect. 

The exercises closed with the benediction by President 
Hinsdale, of Hiram College, who was introduced by Dr. 
Pobinson, as follows: " Friends and Fellow-Citizens: From 
the heart-broken friends of the deceased, I tender you their 
thanks. Mr. Hinsdale, will you dismiss?" 

Mr. Hinsdale said: 

" Oh, God, the sole experience of this day teaches us the 
truth of what Thou hast told us in Thy word. The grave 
is the last of the world and the end of life. Earth to 
earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. But we love the (ft)c- 
trine of the immortality of the soul, and in the power of 
the endless life therefrom. Oh God, our Father, we look 
to Thee now for the greatest blessing. We pray that the 
fellowship and salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ our 
Savior, and thfe inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Con/ 
forter, may be with all who have been in to-day's assembly. 
Amen." ' 

The iinal dirge is sung, and friends and relatives standing 



THE END. 209 

by move nearer to the sepulchre. Blaine steps nervously 
to the very door of the vault, and his white face is pitiful 
evidence of the agony of that moment, while he looks for 
the last time upon even the casket which contains the 
remains of him who was both friend and chief. Mrs. 
Garfield does not look from the carriage; perhaps she finds 
comfort there in thoughts of the quieter, more secluded 
hour, when she, instead of the Nation, shall bnry the man 
so beh)ved. 

At rest at last — the hymn is done, the inelody is hushed, 
the doors of the vault are noiselessly closed. President 
Burke Hinsdale reaches out his hands in final invocation 
for Divine support and pity, and it is the end. 



The End. 



J. G. HOLLAND. 



A wasp flew out upon our fairest son 

And stung him to the quick with poisoned shaft; 

The while lie chatted carelessly and laughed, 

And knew not of the fateful mischief done. 

And SO this life, amid our love begun. 

Envenomed by the insect's hellish craft, 

Was drunk by deatli in one long, feverish draught. 

And he was lost — our gracious, priceless one! 

Oh, mystery of blind, remorseless fate! 

Oh, cruel and of a )nost causeless hate! 

That life so mean should murder life so great! 

What is there left to us who think and feel. 

Who have no remedy and no appeal, 

But damn the wasp and crush him under heel? 



1 



210 THE WORLD WIDE SYMPATHY. 

The "World Wide Sympathy. 
It may be safely said that the death ol President Garfield 
called forth a greater expression of sympathy from the 
great ruler& and nations of the earth, from eminent persons, 
and from the various fraternities and associations of men, 
than the death of any other man. And this is not only an 
evidence ot the great worth of the man, but also an evidence 
of a progressive civilization. It is estimated that over 
300,000,000 persons mourned the death of James A. Gar- 
field. The following are a few of the dispatches of condo- 
lence • 

QUEEN VICTORIA TO MRS. GARFIELD. 

Words cannot express the deep sympathy I feel with you. May 
God support and comfort you, as He alone can. 

The Queen, Balmoral. 

The Queen also cabled at once to the British Minister to 
have a floral tribute prepared and presented in her name. 
It was soon received at the Capitol and placed at the head ot 
the bier of the President. It was very large, and was an ex- 
quisite specimen of the florist's art. It was composed of 
white roses, smilax, and stephanotis. It was accompanied 
by a mourning card bearing the following inscription: 
'• Queen Victoria, to the memory of the late President 
Garfield — an expression of her sorrow and sympathy with 
Mrs. Garfield and the American Nation. Sept. 22, 1881.'' 

gen. grant. 

New York, Sept. 19. — Wayne MacVeagh, Long Branch: 
Please convey to the bereaved family of the President my heart- 
felt sympathy and sorrow for them in their deep affliction. A 
nation will mourn with them for the loss of the Chief Magistrate 
so recently called to preside over its destiny. I will return to 
Long Branch in the morning to tender my services, if they can be 
Tiade useful. U. S. Grant. 



AFFECT IN e INCIDENTS. 2U 

Affecting Incidents. 

" I WANT TO SKE MYSELF." 

After a rigor had passed the President fell asleep, and 
although his pulse was still beating about 120, yet his 
temperature had not decreased more than a tenth of a 
degree or so below the normal point. He awoke in about 
twenty minutes and said to Dr. Bliss, 

" Doctor, I feel very comfortable, but I also feel dread- 
fully weak. I wish you would give me the hand-glass and 
let me look at myself." 

Gen. Swaim said, " Oh no, don't do that, General. See 
if you cannot get some sleep." 

" I want to see myself," the President replied. 

Mrs. Garheld then gave him the hand-glass. He held it 
in a position which enabled him to see his face. jMrs. 
Garfield, Dr. Bliss, Dr. Agnew, Gen. Swaim and Dr. Boyn- 
ton stood around the bed, saying not a word, but looking 
at the President. He studied the reflection of his own 
features. At length he wearily let the glass fall upon the 
counterpane, and with a sigh, said to Mrs. Garfield: 

" Crete, I do not see how it is that a man who looks as 
well as I do should be so dreadfully weak." 

"little mollie fell over like a log." 

In a moment or two he asked for his daughter Mollie. 
They told him that she would come to see him later in the 
day. He said, however, that he wanted to see her at once. 
Thereupon Don Kockwell went to the beach, where Misa 
Mollie was sitting with Mis-i Kockwell, and told her that 
her father wanted to see her. When the child went into 



212 AFFECTING INCIDENTS. 

the room she kissed her father and told him that she was 
glad to see that he was looking so much better. 

He said, ''You think I do look better, Mollie ?" 

She said, "I do, papa," and then she took a chair and sat 
near the foot of the bed. 

A moment or two after Dr. Boynton noticed that she was 
swaying in the chair. He stepped up to her, but before he 
could reach her she had fallen over in a dead faint In 
falling, her face struck against the bed ])ost, and when they 
raised her from the floor she was not only unconscious, but 
also bleeding from the contusion she had received. They 
cavried her out where she could get the fresh breeze from 
the ocean, and after restorativeis were applied she speedily 
recovered. The room was close, the windows were closed, 
and Miss Mollie had not been very well, and all these causes 
combined with anxiety, induced the fainting fit. 

The President, they thought, had not noticed what had 
happened to his petted child, for he seemed to have sunk 
into the stupor which has characterized hi.s condition much 
of the time. Eut when Dr. Boynton came back into the 
room he was astonished to hear the President say: 

" Poor little Mollie; she fell over like a log. What's the 
matter ? " 

They assured the President that the fainting fit was 
caused by the closeness of the room, and that she was quite 
restored. He again sank into a stupor, or sleep, which 
lasted until the noon examination. This stupor was not 
healthy sleep. The President frequently muttered and 
rolled and tossed his head upon the pillow. 



GARFIELD'S BIRTHPLACE AND EAJiLY LIFE. 213 

Garfield's Birthplace— How It Looked on the Great Day of 

the Funeral— Interesting Incidents in Garfield's 

Early Life. 

I Written by one of Garfield's most Intimate Friends, at Orange, Ohio.l 

Here, at the birth-place of Garfield, what memories 
sweep over us when we recall the scenes of his birth and 
boyhood! On the place where stood tlie log hut in which 
he first saw the light is a pole floating a flag at half-mast. 
The old log house is gone, the frame house that succeeded 
it is gone, and now all that marks the spot where James 
A. Garfield was born, fifty years ago, is a whitewood jjole 
rising from the green fields. All around are the groves and 
fields in which the farmer's boy began that noble history 
which is ended so abruptly, so cruelly. 

Here he was born, here he worked in the field by day and 
studied by night, here stood the log school house where he 
first attended school. It is gone now, and a brick one 
stands in its place, but it will never be forgotten, for " Gar- 
field went there first to school." 

THE FRIEND OF HIS BOYHOOD. 

Next to the field in which the national colors now sadly 
wave is the farm of Mr. Henry Boynton, Garfield's cousin, 
-and a brother of Dr. Boynton. . He was more than a cousin. 
While their mothers were sisters and their fathers half- 
brothers, there was another tie that bound them more close- 
ly than the bonds of kinship. Amos Boynton was all to 
Garfield that a father could be after the death of his father, 
when James was but over a year of age. Henry Boynton 
and James A. Gai-field were all to each other that brothers 
could be. 



214 GARFIELD'S BIRTHPLACE AND EARLY LIFE. 

Mr. Boynton was found at his home in the afternoon, 
and although much affected by tlie tragic death of the loved 
companion of his boyhood, seemed to be pleased to relate 
incidents of his early life. 

Mr. Boynton said: James and I were constant compan- 
ions from the time that he was old enough to talk, down to 
the time that he went into active political life. I know, 
perhaps, more of his boyhood and early manhood than any 
person. In our boyhood we were said •to bear a striking- 
resemblance to each other. 

HIS EAK^r LIFE. 

James was always noted from his earliest childhood for 
his desire to be the leader in whatever he undertook. At 
school he was never satisfied to have another boy ahead of 
him, but would strain every nerve to overtake and pass one 
who seemed to have the advantage of him, and always suc- 
ceeded in doing so. lie always managed to be the leader, 
in every circle, whether it was social, intellectual or moral. 
He first went to school at the little log school house which 
stood where you now see yonder brick school building. He 
then worked mornings and nights and attended school 
thi'ough the day. One little incident I never shall forget. 
There was a spelling match in the little log school house in 
which James, who was thirteen years old, took part. The 
teacher told her scholars that if any whispered she would 
send them home. The lad standing next to James became 
confused, and to help him, James told him how to spell his 
word. The teacher saw this and said: 

" James, you know the rule. You must go home." 
James picked up his cap and left. In a very few seconds, 
he returned and took his place in the class. 



GARFIELZrS BIRTHPLACE AND EARLY LIFE. 215 

" Why, how is this, James? I told you to go home,** 
said the teacher. 

" 'I know it, and went home," said James. 

BEGINNING AS A FARM HAND. 

When fourteen years old he began working as a farm 
laborer for Mr. Daniel Morse, who lived near here. While 
working here, he one evening remained in the sitting room 
to listen to the conversation of a young gentleman who had 
called on Miss Morsa Miss Morse, observing him, told 
him it was time for servants to go to bed. This galled his 
sensitive feelings, and the next day he left there, telling me 
that some day he would show them that he was not to be 
looked down upon. 

ON THE CANAL. 

He now went to work on the canal, with Captain Letcher 
for a master. Soon after starting at this work he whipped 
the burly Irishman, Murphy, as you have heard many times, 
I suppose. An incident occurred one night which showed 
his inna,te love of justice. One night when approaching a 
lock he was called on by the captain to help light the crew 
of another boat, which had reached the lock at nearly the 
same time, for the first use of it. 

"■Who has the right to it?" asked James, as he prepared 
for action. 

" Well, I guess they have, but we can lick them and get 
it," said the captain. 

James drew on his coat again, and said: "No, sir; I' 
won't help if it justly belongs to them." 

lie staid on the canal but a short time, as he suifered a 
severe attack of fever and ague, which obliged him to re- 
turn home. All winter he staid at home, shaking with 



216 ASSASSINATIOiY RECORD OF RULERH. 

ague chills, but studying all the time. Between his chills 
he would £jo over to the school house an'd recite, and at the 
end of tlie term stood at the head of the chiss. In tlie 
spring he intended to return to tlie canal, hut by the argu- 
ments and advice of Mr. Bates, his teacher, v^-as ])ersuaded 
to give up this idea and attend school. 



Assassination Record of Rulers for the Last Thirty Years, 

The following is a list of attempts upon the lives ot rul- 
ers since 184:8: 

ls^4§_Nov. 26— The life ol the Duke of Modena was 
attempted. • 

184})_June 21 — The Crown Prince of Prussia M'as at- 
tacked at Minden. 

Ig50 — June 28 — Robert Pate, an ex-Lieutenant in the 
army, attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria. 

1851— May 22— Sefeloque, a workman, shot at Frederick 
William IV., King of Prussia, and broke his arm. 

1852 — Sept. 24— An infernal machine wa.s found at Mar- 
seilles, with which it had been intended to destroy Napo- 
leon III. 

1853 — Feb. 18 — The Emperor Francis Josepli of Austria 
was grievously wounded in the head while walking on the 
ramparts at Vienna, by a Hungarian tailor named Llbzens. 

1853_April 16— An attempt on the life ol Victor Em- 
manuel was reported to the Italian Chamber. 

1853— .luly 5— An attempt was made to kill Nayoleon 
III. as he was entering the Opera Comique. 

1854:--March 20— Ferdinand Charles III., Du' e of 
Parma, was killed by an unknown man, who stabbed him 
in the abdomen. 

1855— April 28— Napoleon III. was fired at \v ^he 



FOR THE LAST THIRTY YEARS. 217 

Ohainps Ely sees by Giovanni Pianeri. 

1856 — April 28 — Eaymond Fuentes was arrested in the 
act of firing on Isabella, Queen of Spain. 

1856 — Dec. 8 — Agesilas Milano, a soldier, stabbed Fer- 
dinand III. of Naples with his bayonet. 

1857 — Ang. 7 — Napoleon III. again. Barcoletti, Gib- 
aid i, and Grillo were sentenced to death for corning from 
L<-)iidon to assassinate him. , 

1858 — Jan. 14 — Napoleon III. for the fifth time. Orsini 
nnd his associates threw fnlminating bombs at him as he 
^vas on his way to the opera. 

18G1 — July 14 — King William of Prussia was for the 
first time shot at, by Oscar Becker, a student of Baden- 
Baden. Becker fired twice at him, but missed him. 

1861 — Dec. 18 — A student named Dossios fired a pistol 
at queen Amalia of Greece (Princess of Oldenburg) at 
Athens. 

1863 — Dec. 24. — Four more conspirators from London 
against the life of Napoleon III. were arrested at Paris. 

1865 — April 14 — President Lincoln was shot by J, 
Wilkes Booth. 

1866 — April 6 — A Russian named Kavarasoif^attempted 
Czar Alexander's life at St. Petersburg. He was foiled by 
a peasant, who was ennobled for the deed, 

1867 — Tlie Czar's life was again attempted during the 
great Exposition, at a review in the Bois de Boulogne, at 
Paris. 

1867 — June 19 — Maximilian shot. 

1868 — June 10 — Prince Michael of Servia was killed by 
the brothers Radwarowitch. 

1871 — The lite of Amadeus, then newly king of Spain, 
was attempted. 

1872 — August— Col. Gutieriez assassinated President 
Ball a, of the Republic of Peru. 



218 ASSASSINATION RECORD OF RULERS 

1873 — Jan. 1 — President Morales, of Bolivia, was assas- 
sinated 

1875 — August — President Garcia Maeno, of Ecuador, 
was assassinated. 

1877 — June — Pi-esident Gill, of Paraguay, was assassin- 
ated by Conimander Molas. 

1878 — May 11 — The Emperor William, of Germany, was 
shot at airaiu. this time ])\ Emile Henri Max Hoedel, alias 
Lehmann, the Socialist. Ix'hman tired three shots at the 
Emperor, who was returning from a drive with the Grand 
Duchess of Baden, but missed him. 

1878 — June 2 — Emperor William shot at by Dr. ISTobil- 
ing, wliile out riding. Jle received about thirty small shots 
in the neck and face. 

1878 — April 14 — Attempted assasiiiation of the Czar at 
St. Petersburg, by one Solojew. He was executed May 9. 

1870 — Dec. 1 — The assassination of the Czar attempted 
by a mine under a train near Moscow. 

1879 — Dec. oO — The King of Spain was shot at while 
driving with the Queen. 

1880 — Eeb. 17 — Attempt to kill the Royal family of Rus- 
sia by blowing up the Winter Palace. Eight soldiers killed 
and forty-five wounded. 

1881— March 11— The Czar killed by a bomb. 

1^81 — July 2— President Garfield shot by C.J. Guiteau, 
an eccentric lawyer of doubtful sanity, who is said to have 
been born at Freeport, 111., and who was licensed at the bar 
in Chicago. 



ASSASSINATION 



OF 



PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 



The attempted assassination of Gen. Garlield naturally 
recalls the assassination of President Lincoln, and will go 
down to posterity allied to that terrible event. The par- 
ticulars of that dreadful tragedy are as follows: 

It was on the evening of Friday, April 14, 1805, that President 
and Mrs. Lincohi, with Miss Mary Harris and Maj. Rathbun, of 
Albany, son-iu-law of Senator Harris, visited Ford's Theatre, at 
Washington, for the purpose of witnessing "The American 
Cousin," which was running at the theatre. The fact that this 
distinguished party was to be present at the performance had 
been duly announced in all the local papers, and th^ tnoatre avus 
denselycrowded. The Presidential party occupied a box on the 
second tier. The scene was a brilliant one, and all went merry 
with the audience and actors alike until the close of the third act, 
when the sharp report of a pistol was heard, and an instant after- 
ward a man was seen to spring from the President's box to the 
stage, where, striking a tragic attitude jyid brandishing a long dag- 
ger in his right hand, he cried out, "ISic semper tyrannis!" and 
then,;unid the bewilderment of the audiejice, rushed through the 
opposite side of the stuge and made his escape from the rear of 
the theatre. The screams of ]Sli s. Lincoln told the audience but 
too plainly that the President had been shot. All present rose to 
their feet, and the excitement was of the wildest possible descrip- 
tion. A rush was made to the President's box, where, on a hasty 
examination being made, it was found he was shot through the 
head. The President was quiikly removed to a private liouse 
opposite the theatre, where, on furiher examination, his wound 
was pronounced to be mortal. This tragic occurrence, of course, 
immediately put a stop to the i)erformance, and the theatre was 
closed as quickly as possible. The assassin in his hurried flighty 
dropped his hat and a spur on the stage. The hat was identified 
as belonging to J. Wilkes Booth, a i)romiiient actor, and the spur 
was recognized as one obtained by him at a stable on that day. 
One or two of the actors and members of the orchestra declared. 

219 



220 A<SiSAii8INATJ0I{ OF 

that the assassin was no other than Wilkes Booth, and the evi- 
dence ahuost nioiuentarily accumulating fixed him beyond doubt 
as the author of the bloody tragedy. Almost before the audience 
had left the tlieatre it was known that the assasin, after he got 
out, made his escape on horseback. 

^ SECRETARY SEWARD'S ESCAPE. 

The news of the hideous tragedy spread like wild-fire, and the 
greatest excitement prevailed throughout the city, dense throngs 
of peo])le congregating in tlie locality of the house where Presi- 
dent Lincoln w;is lying. While the general excitement was at its 
height, it became known that an attempt had been made to assas- 
sinate Mr. Seward, Secretary of State. At about 10 o'clock a man 
called at the Secretary's house, stating that he had been sent by 
the family physician with a prescription for the Secretary, who 
was sick, at the same time stating that he must see him person- 
ally, as he was instructed to give particular directions con- 
cerning the medicine. He pusiied his way past the servant, who 
IkhI told him Secretary Seward could not be seen, and rushed up 
stairs to Mv. Seward's room, where he was met by the Secretary's 
son, Mr. Fred. Seward, who said he would take charge of the med- 
icine. Tiie man dealt him a heavy blow, and rushing past him 
into Secretary Seward's room, sprang upon the Secretary as he lay 
in bed and stabbed him several times in the neck and breast. Maj. 
Seward, another of the Secretary's sons, rushed to his father's as- 
sistance, and got badly cut in a tussle with tne ruffian, who after 
a hard struggle managed to escape from the house, and mounting 
the horse he had left at the door, galloped off, shouting out, "»Sic 
semper tiirannh't." Surgeon General Barnes was immediately sent 
for, and pronounced the Secretary's and Maj. Seward's womids not 
fatal, but the injuries whi(di the desperado had inflicted on Fred- 
erick Seward and the servant of the house were considered more 
serious. When it was known that Secretary Seward was not dan- 
gerously wounded, the general anxiety was centered on President 
Lincoln, and while the scene in the streets was one of the wildest 
excitement and confusion, within the chamber where President 
Lincoln was lying all was sadness and stillness. Several members 
of the cabinet had hastened to his side. Medical and surgical aid 
were ol)tained, and everything was done to relieve the suffering 
President. It was soon ascertained, however, that it was impos- 
sible for him to survive, the only question being how long he 
would linger. All through the weary hours of the night and early 
niDining the President lay unconscious, as he had been ever since 



PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 221 

his assassination. He was watched by several faithful' friends, in 
addition to near relatives. At his bedside were the Secretary of 
War, Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of the Interior, Postmaster 
General, and the Attorney General, Senator Sumner, Gen. Farns- 
worth, Gen. Todd, cousin of Mrs. Lincoln ; Maj. Hay, M. B. Field, 
Gen. Halleck, Maj. Gen. Meigs, the Rev. Dr. Gurley, Gen. Oglesby, 
of Illinois, and Drs. E. N. Abbott, 11. K. Stone, C. I). Hatch, Neal, 
HalJ, and Liebermau. 

MRS. LINCOLN'S GRIEF. 

In the adjoining room were Mrs. Lincoln, her son, Capt. Robert 
Lincoln, Miss Harris, Rufus S. Andrews, and two lady friends of 
Mrs. Lincoln. Mrs. Lincoln was under great excitement and agony, 
exclaiming again and again : "Why did he not shoot me instead of 
my husband V" She was constantly going back and forth to the bed- 
side of the President, crying out in the greatest agony: "How can 
it be so?" The scene was heartrending in the extreme, and all 
were greatly overcome. Mrs. Lincoln took her leave of her hus- 
band about twenty minutes before his death. When she was told 
he had breathed his last she exclaimed : " Oh ! Why did you not 
tell me he was dying '?" The surgeons and members of the Cabinet, 
Senator Sumner, Capt. Robert Lincoln, Gen. Todd, Mr. Field, and 
Mr. Andrews were standing at his bedside when he died. The 
surgeons were sitting on the foot of the bed, holding the President's 
hands and with watches observing the slow declension of the pulse, 
and such was the stillness for some minutes that the ticking of the 
watches could be heard in the room. At twenty-two minutes past 
7 a. m. on April 15. the looked for but dreaded end came, and as he 
drew his last breath the Rev. Dr. Gurley offered up a prayer for the 
deceased's heart-broken family and the mourning country. The 
President died without a struggle, passing silently and calmly 
away, having been in a state of utter unconsciousness from the 
time he was shot till his death. All present in the silent death 
chamber felt the awful solemnity of the occasion, and the scene 
was heartrending and touching. Mrs. Lincoln, shortly after her 
husband's death, was driven, with lier son Robert, to the AVhite 
House, where, but the evening before, she left for the last time 
with her honored husljand, who was never again to enter that 
home alive. 

Long before the President expired the authorities were per- 
fectly s;itislied as to who committed the terrible deeds, and the 
city and military authorities commenced the investigation, and 
while the Cabinet and other ministers were watching ever the 



222 ASSASSINATION OF 

PresidentTevery effort was made to capture the murderers. Cour- 
iers mounted on Heet hoises rushed to and fro, and the sound of 
the hoofs of horses was heard in all directions. The city and 
military authorities worked with energy and vigilance, and the 
tidings at last came that one of the horses had been captured, 
nearly exhausted, at the outskirts of the city, and that its bridle 
was covered with blood. The animal was identified as the horse 
ridden by the assassin from Seward's residence. This gave a good 
deal of hope that the author of the horrible crime might be cap- 
tured. 

THE EFFECT OF THE PRESIDENT'S DEATH. 

The news of the President's death fell like a pall over the city, 
and before long every house was di'aped in mourning. It seemed 
that all were engaged in the sad tribute to the departed. The 
Department buildings were tastefully draped, the War Depart- 
ment being literally covered. The pillars and the entire front 
were richly festooned with black. The hotels, private residences, 
and places of business were also appropriately dressed. In short, 
a mantle of gloom was thrown over the entire National Capital. 
Flags from the Departments and throughout the city lloated at 
half-mast, and nearly all private and public business was sus- 
pended. The grief felt was widespread, and the deepest gloom 
and sadness prevailed on all sides. The President's corpse was 
removed to the White House before noon, and a dense crowd 
accompanied the remains. After an autopsy had been made on 
the corpse it was embalmed and placed in a handsome mahogany 
coffin, on which was a silver plate bearing the inscription: 

: ABRAHAM LINCOLN, : 

: Sixteenth President of the United States. : 

I Born February 12, 1809. ] 

: Died April 15, 1865. ! 

In the evening City Councils, clergy, and others held meetings 
to officially express regret at the President's death. Although 
nothing was talked of during the day but the atrocious assassina- 
tion and attempted assassination made by Secession sympathizers 
and desperadoes, there was no disturbance of any kind, and by 
night time the streets were quiet and the excitement gradually 
subsiding. In the meantime every effort was being made to cap- 
ture the assassins. Every road leading out of Washington was 
strongly picketed, and every avenue of escape thoroughly 



PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 223 

guarded, and steamboats about to start down the Potomac were 
stopped.' A rumor prevailed that Wilkes Booth had been cap- 
tured, and this helped to keep the indignation of the people as fierce 
as ever, and to keep up the excitement, though the rumor turned 
out to be without foundation. 

THE NORTH IN MOURNING. 

Sunday, the 16th. was a solemn and mournful day in Wasbing- 
ton.as also in every city in the States. The churches were crowded, 
and not a sermon was preached but the tragic occurrence was 
touchingly alluded to. During the day it was learned that all 
members of the. Seward family were recovering from their in- 
juries, and general satisfaction was expressed that Secretary Sew- 
ard had not fallen a victim to the assassin's blow. The interior of 
the White House all day presented a scene of overwhelming sad- 
ness. The body of the Chief Magistrate of the Nation was 
temporarily laid out in one of the upper rooms of the house. The 
body was dressed in the suit of plain black worn by him on the 
occasion of his last inauguration, while on his pillow and over the 
breast were scattered affectionate offerings in the shape of white 
flowers and green leaves. During the evening it was made known 
that the funeral services would take place AVednesday, the 19th, 
and that the President's body would be interred at Springfield, 
111. On Monday the person who assaulted Secretary Seward was 
arrested as he was about to enter the house of Mrs. Surratt in the 
little village of Uniontovn. An intense excitement prevailed 
when it was learned that detectives were on Booth's tracks. 
Several persons supposed to be concerned in these murderous out- 
rages were placed under arrest. On Monday the body of the mur- 
dered President lay in state in the coffin, which was placed on a 
grand catafalque erected in the East Room of the White House. 
The room was heavily draped in mourning and a guard of 
honor surrounded the coffin. The populace by thousands gathered 
at the White House and there viewed the body. The trains dur- 
ing the night and morning rought hundreds of distinguished 
visitors to the city from all portions of the North. All the streets 
leading to the White House were thronged with people from early 
morn till late at night wending their way to the spot where rested 
the sarcophagus in which was confined the cold and motionless 
form of him who but a few days since had hold of the helm of the 
ship of State. The universality of the mourning was remarkable. 

Old and young, rich and poor, all sexes, grades and colors, united 
in paying their homage to the great and illustrious dead, and one 



224 ASSASSINATION OF 

of the most touching sights was that of the woundsd soldiers from 
the hospitals, who came to have a long, last look at the face of the 
late President and honored Coiuniander-in-Chief. 

THE FUNERAL SERVICES. 

On Wednesday morning a funeral service was held at the White 
House, at which were present a large number of clergymen repre- 
senting various sections of the country. The heads of Bureaus, 
the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, the Governors, Assistant 
Secretaries, Congressmen, officers of the Supreme Court, the Diplo- 
matic Corps, the Judges of the local Courts, the pall-bearers*, 
ladies of the Government officials, the chief mourners. President 
Johnson and Cabinet, the members of the famlTy, and the ushers. 
The whole scene presented in the room was one of solemnity, and 
a single feeling appeared manifest among all, and that was grief. 
The services were conducted by the Rev. Dr. Hall, of the 
Episcopal Church, in the city, and the funeral oration was- 
delivered by the Eev. Dr. Gurley, pastor of the Presby- 
terian Church in the city, which Mr. Lincoln and his family 
were in the habit of attending. At the close of these services the 
the funeral cortege started for the Capital. Every window, 
housetop, balcony, and every inch of sidewalk on either side was 
densely crowded with a living throng to witness tlie procession. 
The beat of the funeral drum sounded upon the street, and the 
cortege marched with solemn tread and arms reversed. The pro- 
cession consisted of a large military escort, including a body of 
dismounted officers of the army and navy and marine corps. Fol- 
lowing these came the civic authorities, and after them the fun- 
eral car, drawn by six gray horses. A long line of sad and weep- 
ing relatives of the deceased followed in carriages. Next came 
President Johnson, accompanietl by Mr. Preston King, of New 
Yoik, with a strong cavalry guard on either side. Ihe rest of the 
procession consisted of the Cabinet and diplomatic corps. Judges 
of the Supreme Court, and clerks of the Departments, and was 
closed by l,.j(iO well-dressed negroes of various organizations. The 
procession was one liour and a half passing a given point; it con- 
tained l.'^.OOO persons, and was witnessed by 'at least 150,000 
people. After the body had been placed m the Capitol, the Rev. 
Dr. Gurley read the burial service, at the close of which the out- 
side procession slowly dispersed. The body of the late President 
lay in state in the Capitol all that day and through the night, 
attended by a guard of honor and viewed by an immense number 
of citizens. 



PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 225 

Early on Friday morning, the 21st, the Ixxly was carried to the 
depot of the Baltimore & Ohio Railway, and the distinguished 
party that was to accompany the remains to Springfield, 111., left 
on their sad errand by the half-past 7 a. m. train. The route' was 
as follows, and the arrangements were all carried out to perfec- 
tion, there being no delays on the journey : From Washington tO' 
jialtimore, Baltimore to Harrisburg, Harrisburg to Philadelphia, 
Philadelphia to New Tork, New York to Albany, Albany to ]3uf- 
falo, Buffalo to Cleveland, Cleveland to Columbus, Columbus to 
Indianapolis, Indianapolis to Chicago, Chicago to Springfield. All 
the towns along the route were draped in mourning, and at the 
cities above mentioned, where the funeral train stopped, the cofTin 
was removed from the funeral car and borne in solemn and 
majestic procession through the streets to the principal public 
building in each city, where suitable ceremonies were performed, 
and the sad procession in each city witnessed by thousands of cit- 
izens and visitors from neighboring towns. The funeral train 
reached Springfield, 111., on the 4th of May, on which day the body 
of the deceased President was interred in the Oak Ridge Cemetery 
amid much funeral pomp and ceremony. 

THE ASSASSINS ARRESTED. 

It was some days after the assassination of President Lincoln 
before the indignation of the public was somewhat calmed at 
learning of the arrests of those implicated in the assassination of 
the Preiident and in the assaults on the Seward family. A reward 
of $50,000 was offered for the arrest of Booth, $25,000 for tlie 
arrest of Atzerot, and a like sum for that of D. C. Harrold, the 
latter two being known to be specially implicated in the assassi- 
nation and the attempted assassination. Lewis Payne was ar- 
rested April 15 at Washington, at the house of Mrs. Surratt. On 
•being taken before the servant at Mr. Seward's house he was im- 
mediately recognized as the person who attempted to assassinate 
Secretary Seward. With him were arrested Mrs. Surratt and oth- 
ers in the same house. Atzerot was arrested on April 20 near 
Middlebury. Montgomery Co., Md. On April 25th J. Wilkes Booth 
was overtaken by a party sent out by Col. L. C. Baker special' 
detective of the War Department. Booth and Harrold h'ad been' 
traced together across theEappahannockRiver at Mathias Point 
Md.,and were found on Tuesday evening, April 25, in a barn about 
three miles from Port Royal. The barn was surrounded, and 
although Harrold was willing to give himself up. Booth refused 
to surrender.. Finally tlie barn was fired. Harrold then gave' 



226 QARFIELU^S JlAAJMiS. 

himself up, but Booth^ prepared to defend liimself. Lieut. Doch- 
erty, commanding the party, ordered Sergt. Corbett to fire, which 
he did through one of the crevices and shot Booth tlirough the 
head. Upon being shot Booth exclaimed, " It is all up now ; I'm 
gone!" He was found to be wounded in the head, and died about 
two hours after he was shot. The other important arrests made 
were Dr. Mudd, at whose house Booth was known to have stoppeu 
when in Maryland; Edward Spangler, of Ford's Theatre; Michael 
O'Laughlin, and Samuel Arnold. These, with Atzerot, Harrold, 
and Mrs. Surratt, were arraigned on Saturday, May 13, and after a 
lengthy trial, Harrold, Payne, Atzerot, and Mrs. Surratt were sen- 
tenced to be executed, and were hanged on July 7 at Washington. 



Garfield's Maxims. 

—I WOULD rather be beaten in Right than succeed in Wrong. 

— I FEEL a profounder reverence for a Boy than for a man. I 
never meet a ragged Boy in the street without feeling that I may 
owe him a salute, for I know not what possibilities may be but- 
toned up under his coat. 

—Present Evils always seem greater than those that never 
come. 

— Luck is an ignis-fatuus. You may follow it to Rwin, but 
never to Success. 

—A POUND of Pluck is worth a ton of Luck. 

— Fou the noblest man that lives there still remains a Conflict 

—The principles of Ethics have not changed by the lapse of 
years. 

— Growth is better than Permanence, and permanent growth 
is better than all. 

— It is no honor or profit merely to appear in the arena. The 
Wreath is for those who contend. 

—After the battle of Arms comes the battle of History. 

—There is a fellowship among the Virtues by which one 
great, generous passion stimulates another. 

—The privilege of being a Young Man is a great privilege, and 
the privilege of growing up to be an independent Man in middle 
life is a greater, 

— Xo Man can make a speech alone. It is the great human 
powei that strikes up from a thousand minds that acts upon him 
and makes the speech. 

—We hold reunions, not for the Dead, for there is nothing in 
all the earth that you and I can do for the Dead. They are past 



QARFIELD'8 MAA'IMS. 227 

our help and past oiir praise. We can add to them no glory, we 
can give to them no immortality. They do not need us. but for- 
ever and forever more we need them— SpeecJi at Geneva, Aug. 3. 

1880. 

— NoTHiNG is more imcertain than the result of any one throw ; 
few things more certain than the result of many throws. 

—If the power to do hard work is not Talent, it is the best pos 
sible substitute for it. 

—Occasion may be the bugle-call that summons an army to 
battle, but the blast of a bugle can never make Soldiers or win 
Victories. 

— TniNQS don't turn up in this World until somebody turns 
them up. 

—We cannot study Nature i)rofoundly without bringing our- 
selves into communion with the Spirit of Art, which prevades 
and fills the Universe. 

-If there be one thing upon this Earth that mankind love 
and admire better than another, it is a brave Man— it is a 
man who dares to look the Devil in the face and tell him he is a 
Devil. 

—It is one of the precious mysteries of Sorrow that it finds 
solace in unselfish Thought. 

—True art is but the anti-type of Nature— the embodiment of 
discovered Beauty in utility. 

—Every character is the joint product of Nature and Nur- 
ture. 

—He was one of the few great Rulers whose wisdom increased 
with his power, and whose spirit grew gentler and tenderer as his • 
Triumphs were mu]tip\\ed.—Oratio7i on Abraham Lincoln. 

—The Problems to be solved in the study of human life and 
character are these: Given the Character of a Man and the con- 
ditions of life around him, \^ hat will be his Career? Or, given 
his Character and Career, of what kind were his Surroundings f 
The relation of these three factors to each other is severely logical. 
From them is deduced all genuine History. Character is the 
chief element, for it is both a Result and a Cause— a result of In- 
fluence and a cause of Results. 

—Power exhibits itself under two distinct forms— Strength and 
Force— each possessing peculiar qualities and each perfect in its 
own sphere. Strength is typified by the Oak, the Rock, the 
Mountain. Force embodies itself in the Cataract, the Tempest, 
the Thunderbolt. 

—The possession of great Powers no doubt carries with it a 
contempt for mere external Show. 

.. ""^P ^ young Man who has in himself the magnificent possibili- 
ties of hfe it is not fitting that he should be permanently com- 



228 GARFIELD'^ 3IAAIMS. 

manded ; he should be a Commander. You must not continue to 
hQ the employed. You must be an employer! You must be pro- 
moted from the ranks to a command. There is something, young 
Man, which you can command — go and find it and command it. 
Do not, I beseech you, be content to enter upon any Business 
which does not require and compel constant intellectual Growth. 

—In order to have any success in life, or any worthy success, 
you must resolve to carry into your work a fullness of Knowl- 
edge—not merely a Sufficiency, but more than a Sufficiency. 

— Be fit for more than the Thing you are now doing. 

— If you are not too large for the Place you are too small 
for it. 

— Young Men talk of trusting to the Spur of the Occasion. 
That trust is vain. Occasions cannot make Spurs. If you ex- 
pect to wear Spurs you must win them. If you wish to use them 
you must buckle them to your own -heels before you go into the 
Fight. 

— The Student should study himself, his relation to Society, to 
Nature and Art — and above all, in all, and through all these, he 
should study the relations of Himself, Society, Nature and Art to 
God the Author of them all. 

— Great Ideas travel slowly and for a time noiselessly, as the 
gods whose Feet were shod with wool. 

— The world's history is a Divine Poem of which the history 
of eveiy Nation is a canto and every Man a word. Its strains 
have been pealing along down the centuries, and though there 
have been mingled the discords of warring, cannon and dying 
men, yet to the Christian, Philosopher ;ind Historian— the humble 
•listener- -there has been a divine melody running through the 
song which si)eaks of hope and halcyon days to come. 

—Truth is so related and correlated that no department of her 
realm is wholly isolated. 

— Liberty can be safe only when suffrage is illuminated by 
education. 

— The scientific spirit has cast out the Demons and presented 
us with Nature, clothed in her right mind and living under the 
reign of law. It has given us for the sorceries of the Alchemist, 
the beautiful laws of chemistry; for the dreams of the Astrol- 
oger, the sublime truths of astronomy; for the wild visions of 
Cosmogony, the monumental records of geology; for the anarchy 
of Diabolism, the laws of God. 

— The American people have done much for the Locomotive, 
and the Locomotive has done much for them. 

— I LOVE to believe that no heroic sacrifice is ever lost, that the 
characters of men are moulded and inspired by what their fathers 
have (lone; that, treasured up in American souls are all the un- 
conscious intluences of the great deeds of the Anglo-Saxon race, 
from Agincourt to Bunker Hill. 



THE WORLD'S EULOGIES 



ON 



PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 

(1) 



The reader will find in tliis volume some of the most 
eloquent and pathetic words that have ever fallen from the 
lips of man, called forth by the life and death of one whose 
career, from the cabin to the White House, forms the 
brightest pages in human history. Life's grandest lessons, 
its highest aspirations, holiest love, noblest ambition, man- 
ifold duties, patient labors and fullest rewards, are exhaust- 
ively portrayed, by orators the most eminent, as they gaze 
upon the colossal figure. In this one single life the whole 
world seems beckoned to a higher eivilization. Says Wat- 
terson: "To-day, for the first time in fift}^ aye, in sixty 
years, the people of the United States are one with one 
another, and stand hand in hand and heart to heart." " In 
the scenes of tliese few days," says Swing, " we must mark 
some signs of a more sensitive brotherhood;" and the elo- 
quent Stores, in his eulogy, declares that "Never since we 
have been a people — indeed, since this world has had a his- 
tory — has there been a mourning so universal, a grief so 

(8) 



PREFACE. 9 

deep and so profoundly sincere." And the basis of all is 
touchingly told in another eulogy, where a little child, see- 
ing the mourning emblems on every side in its native vil- 
lage, said, in all the sincerity of its heart:/ 

"Mamma, is there somebody dead in everybody's house 
to-day?" 

"No, dear," said the mother, "there is not some one 
dead in everybody's house to-day, but everybody has lost a 
friend." 

The eulogies in this volume have been pronounced by 
the best orators of the day, upon one of the grandest 
themes of the age — a perfect man — which necessarily called 
forth the best possible effort, Por eloquence, pathos and 
general instruction — so far as we may learn from the exam- 
ple of an upright man — they are as unparalleled in the his- 
tory of literature as is the great " Memorial Day," with 
its three hundred millions of sorrowing hearts, unparalleled 
in the history of human sympathy. 

J. B. McClure. 

Chicago, Oct. 10, 1881. 




A GRAND LIFE AND ITS GREAT LESSONS. 

REV. ISAAC ERRETT, CINCINNATI. 

PACK 

The Funeral Address at the Pavilion, in Cleveland — Time of unpar- 
alled Mourning — Why do we Mourn? — A Thrilling Incident — 
Virtue and its Rewards — A Rounded Life — The Great Lesson — 
Truth the Eternal Foundation— The Mother— The Wife— The 
Children — The Divine Benedictions, ....*. 17 

A COLOSSAL FIGURE. 

PROP. SWING, CHICAGO. 

Human Greatness and Sorrow — Young Garfield and Liberty — Les- 
sons for the Young — Man's Dignity and Greatness — Signs of a 
Higher Civilization — Garfield's Religion — Garfield and Lincoln — 
The White Pages of History, 30 

MIGHTIER DEAD THAN LIVING. 

DR. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, BROOKLYN. 

Sampson, the Hercules of Greece — Garfield's Remarkable Death — 
Shaking Hands aci'oss the Palpitating Heart — Valuable Lessons 
for All — The Limits of Science and Sympathy — Mrs. Garfield's 
Heroism — Eloquent Peroration, 41 

GARFIELD'S GREATNESS OF NATURE. 

PRESIDENT HINSDALE, HIRAM COLLEGE. 

An Unparalleled History — Garfield's Many-sidedness — Young Gar- 
field at Hiram — Garfield's Simplicity — Gai-field's Last Letter to 
President Hinsdale— The Noble Wife— A Mystery, 

GARFIELD'S BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 



51 



HON. J. H. RHODES, CLEVELAND. 

Garfield at Hiram — In the Class-room — How He Learned — Rom in 
the Right Age — Pleasing Incidents — Love of Poetry — Stopping 
the Carriage on the Old Bridge, 58 

(10) 



CONTENTS. 11 

THE NATION'S FRIEND. 

HENRY WATTERSON, LOUISVILLE. PAGE 

Heart to Heart— Every Inch a Man— A Blow that Missed the State 
and Struck the Man— Watterson Loved Him— Personal Reminis- 
cences — We Stand on Common Ground — Saluting the Star-Span- 
gled Banner — " God Reigns and the Government Still Lives," . 63 

THE CROWN OF MARTYRDOM. 

REN. HENRY WARD BEECHER, BROOKLYN. 
(In Peekskill.) 
A World in Mourning— Garfield's Birth-gifts— The Conflict Ended— 
Four Conspicuous Names, 69 

GARFIELD'S GREATNESS. 

REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER, BROOKLYN. 
(In Brooklyn.) 
The Prayer — Shortness of Life— The Lion and the Lamb— The Fu- 
neral Mai-ch — Comfort in Sorrow — Unity of Mankind — Instruc- 
tive Lessons — A Word on Guiteau — The Sorrowful Family Group, 73 

COMFORT IN SORROW. 

ROBERT COLLYER, D.D., NEW YORK. 

The President is Dead— The Shining Portals— A Shadow over the 
Day— Hard to Submit to the Doom— Garfield's Love for his Coun- 
try and Family— Kissing his Mother — The Tokens of Sympathy 
— Waiting and Watching, 80 

OUR GOOD PRESIDENT. 

HON. EMERY A. STORRS, CHICAGO. 

Unparalleled Sorrow— Universal Brotherhood of Humanity— Garfield 
Made the Whole Circuit of American Life— A Record Pure and 
Spotless— The School-boy and the Teacher— The Preacher and the 
Soldier— Meeting Garfield During the Campaign— Meeting Him 
at Mentor— Anecdotes— Meeting Him at the White House— In- 
teresting Incidents— Garfield Without an Enemy— His Firmness 
—The Friend of All— Standing by the Open Grave— The Past is 
Secure — His Memory is Om'S, 83 

GARFIELD'S LIFE AND DEATH. 

HON. R. STOCKETT MATHEWS — BALTIMORE. 

Picturesque Phases in Garfield's Life— An Inspiration— A Hero — 
The Genius of Free Institutions— The Long Distance Between 
the Tow-path and the Executive Mansion— Twenty Years— The 



12 CONTENTS. 

PAGI 

Coronation — Firing the Temple of Ephesu? — James A. Garfield 
the Most Perfect Man of the Century — Meeting him Eighteen 
Years Ago in Monument Square — Meeting him a Few Days 
Before the Assassination — The Christian Politician — Christian 
Statesman — The Dying Hero, 97 

IN MEMORIAM. 

CHARLES P. BUCK, ESQ. — NEW ORLEANS. 

A Bright Morning — A Great Nation — Garfield's Election — His In- 
auguration — His Martyrdom — A Review of his Life — Extract 
from Garfield's Speech to Restore Jefferson Davis to the Right 
of Citizenship — On the Greenback Question — His Personal Char- 
acteristics — His Domestic Life, 114 

THE MAN OF HIS TIME. 

PHILLIPS BROOKS, D.D. — BOSTON. 

Days that Stand Apart in History — A Common Grief— A Half Cen- 
tury of Noble Life — Garfield in War — His Fidelity to the Right — 
Garfield a Philosopher — His Love for Literature — His Love for 
Jesus Christ— A Word to the Young, 127 

A NATION MOURNS. 

EX-GOV. C. K. DAVIS — ST. PAUL. 

The Trappings of Woe — A Leading Statesman — A Pratical Man — 
A Noble Ambition — Garfield's Imagination — His Scholarship — 
An Incident in the Chicago Convention — The Duty of the Hour 
—The Three Martyred Presidents— The Halls of History— The 
Lesson we Must Learn to Live — Warning Words, . . . 133 

GARFIELD'S DOMESTIC LIFE. 

REV. L. W. BRIGHAM — LA CROSSE. 

Garfield's Home Life— His Good Mother— Mrs. Garfield's Wifely 
Devotion — Scene at the Inauguration — Full Realization of a 
Mother's Hopes — Garfield's Tender Affection — His Remark on the 
Fatal Morning: "I Should Rather Die than that She Should 
Have a Relapse, " 141 

A PICTURE. 

HON. JOHN H. CRAIG — SAN FRANCISCO. 

Looking Across the Intervening Space — States Bowed in Reverence 
— The Eloquence of Grief — The Dearest Name in History — Look- 



CONTENTS. 18 

PAGE 

mg at the Picture — A Glimpse at Garfield's Family Life — A Rep- 
resentative Man, . 145 

GARFIELD'S LEGACY. 

EABBI LILIENTHAL — CINCINNATI. 

The Divine Poem — The Coffin-Pulpit — "God Reigns, and the Gov- 
ernment at Washington Still Lives " — American Aspiration and 
Success — Fortitude in Suffering, 149 

THE TYPICAL AMERICAN. 

PROP. SHATTUCK — GREELEY. 

Garfield's Boyhood — On the Farm — Swinging the Ax — " I wiU go 
Through College" — Gai-field's Remaiks on Williams' Old Log 
Cabin and Mark Hopkins — His Kindness of Heart — Incidents 
Illustrating the Greatness of the Man — His Moral Courage — 
Studying the Good of the Republic, 154 

TRUE TO HIMSELF— FALSE TO NONE. 

HON. R. P. PETTIBONE — BURLINGTON. 

Garfield Followed his Convictions — What we Love him For — A Vis- 
ion of the Past — Garfield's Devotion to his Wife — Graphic Pic- 
ture of a Scene in the Chicago Convention —On the Bed of 
Suffering— The Nation his Memorial, 160 

THE HOUSEHOLD STORY. 

CHANCET M. DEPEW — NEW YORK. 

The Wickedest Crime of the Century — Garfield the Highest Type of 
Manhood — His Life a Great Incentive to the Young — Salutary 
Influence of Garfield's Death — The North and South Rise from 
Bended Knees to Embrace — The Queen, 166 

A MAN FOR THE PEOPLE. 

REV. T. K. NOBLE — SAN PRANCISCO. 

An Army Chaplain to his Comrades — A Grand Life — Garfield's Re- 
ligion — A Happy Home, 169 

A LIFE THAT SHINES. 

JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE, D.D. — BOSTON. 

Garfield Side by Side with Washington and Lincoln — The World- 
wide Sorrow — Loyalty to the Government, .... 176 



U CONTENTS. 

THE IMMORTAL NAME. 

JUDGE JOHN P. REA — MINNEAPOLIS. ^^^^ 

The Sad Requiem — A Tribute Laid Upon a Fresh-made Grave — Hu- 
man Love, ........••• 180 

THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEAD. 

SENATOR VOORHEES — INDIANA. 

Every Nation a Mourner — Meeting Garfield on the Political Field — 
Personal Character — Intellectual Abilities — Incidents, . . 184 

AN UNPARALLELED SPECTACLE. 

REV. G. H. WELLS — MONTREAL. 

We Share the Grief— Growing Intercourse — Garfield, the Boy — The 
Man — The President — Not Ashamed of his Religion — Domestic 
Life — Love for Mankind, 189 

LESSONS FOR THE YOUNG. 

BISHOP CLARKSON — IOWA. 

Among all the "Wonders of History this Hour Stands Alone — A Great 
Example — The Victory — Honest Manhood — Earth's Highest Civic 
Honors, 201 

LINCOLN AND GARFIELD. 
EX-GOV. OGLESBY — ILLINOIS — (Delivered in Leadville, Col.) 
A Nation's Sorrow — Two Great and Good Men — Lincoln and Garfield 
— Both in the Affections of all Lovers of Liberty Throughout the 
World, 205 

GARFIELD, THE CHRISTIAN. 

REV. J. W. INGRAM — OMAHA. 

Influence of His Life — The Christian Statesman — At Home in Men- 
tor—His Faith— Example, .212 

THE FUNCTIONS OF GREAT MEN. 

REV. DR. RANKIN, WASHINGTON. 

Garfield Grew into Greatness — His Power Never Degenerated — ^A 
Loving Heart, 21t 

WHY WE MOURN. 

N. R. HARPER, ESQ., LOUISVILLE. 

How the Colored People in Louisville, Ky., Observed the " Memorial 
Day" — Garfield a Tried Friend, 221 



CONTENTS. 16 

WE ALL MOURN. 

CAPTAIN HENRY JACKSON, ATLANTA. '"AGE 

Twenty Years Ago— Resolutions by the Coeur de Leon Commandery 
—Garfield a Knight Templar 225 

THE PERFECT MAN, 

ELDER J. Z. TAYLOR, KANSAS CITY. 

Grandeur of a Great Life — From the Tow-path to the Presidential 
Chair — Garfield Never Missed from his Place of Worship in 
Washington — How he Sang "All Hail the Powerof Jesus' Name," 
when leaving Mentor 229 

THE LAMENTED PRESIDENT. 

HON. ROGER A. PRYOR, BROOKLYN. 

A Melancholy Pleasure — An Unclouded Promise — Tokens of a Union 
of Hearts 232 

IN LONDON. 
, MINISTER Lowell's address in exeter hall. 
A Paradox — Womanly Devotedness — The Queen — The Death Scene 
Unexampled — Joseph and Garfield — Destiny of the American 
Republic 233 

PERSONAL TRIBUTES TO GEN. GARFIELD. 
John G. Whittier — Lord Bishop of Montreal— Dr. Franklin Noble — 
Dr. H. A. Edson— Gen. Sibley— Rev. J. P. Bodfish, . , .237 

A PUPILSTRIBUTE. 

BY V. F. UDELL, ST. LOUIS. 

Interesting Incidents by one of Garfield's Scholars in Hiram College, 247 
A WISE MAN. 

BY DR. SPROLE, DETROIT. 

Preliminary Statement — A Man Present who has Attended all the 
Funerals of the Presidents, including that of Washington — Duf- 
field's Poem, 250 

IN CONCLUSION. 
Garfield's Poem on Memory, . . 258 




" Oh ! sir, there are times in the history of men and na- 
tions when they stand so near the veil that separates mor- 
tals and immortals, time from eternity, and men from their 
God, that they can almost hear the beating and feel the 
pulsations of the Infinite. Through such a time has this 
Kation passed. When two hundred and fifty thousand 
brave spirits passed from the field of honor through that 
thin veil to the presence of God, and when at last its part- 
ing folds admitted that martyred President to the company 
of the dead heroes of the Republic, the Nation stood so 
near the veil that the whispers of God were heard by the 
children of men." — President Garfield, on the occasion of 
the assassination of his illustrious predecessor^ Abraham 
Lincoln. 

(16) 



THE WORLD'S EULOGIES 

ON 

PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 



A GRAI^D LIFE AND ITS GREAT LESSONS. 



By Rev. ISAAC ERRETT, of Cinciimati. 



FUNERAL ADDRESS, 

DELIVERED AT THE PAVILION IN CLEVELAND, SEPTEMBER 26, t881, IN THE 

PRESENCE OF 250.000 PEOPLE. 

UJSIPAK ALLELE D MOUKNING. 

This is a time of mourning that has no parallel in the 
history of the world. Death is constantly occurring, and 
every day and every hour, and almost every moment, some 
life expires, and somewhere there are broken hearts and 
desolate homes. But we have learned to accept the una- 
voidable, and we pause a moment and drop a tear, and away 
again to the excitement and -ambitions, and forget it all. 
Sometimes a life is called for that plunges a large commu- 
nity in mourning, and sometimes whole nations mourn the 
loss of a king, or a wise statesman, or an eminent sage, or 
a great philosopher, or a philanthropist, or a martyr who 
3 (17) 



18 A GRAND LIFE 

has laid his life on the altar of truth, and won for himself 
an envious immortality among the sons of men. But there 
was never a mourning in all the world like unto this mourn- 
ing. I am not speaking extravagantly when I say — for I 
am told it is the result of calculations carefully made from 
such data as are in possession — that certainly not less than 
300,000,000 of the human race share in the sadness, and 
lamentations, and sorrow, and mourning that belong to 
this occasion here to-day. It is a cliill shadow of a fearful 
calamity that has extended itself into every home in all 
this land, and into every heart, and that has projected itself 
over vast seas and oceans into distant lands, and awakened 
the sincerestand profoundest sympathy with us in the hearts 
of the good people of the nations, and among all people. 
It is worth while, my friends, to pause a moment, and ask 
why this is? 

WHY DO WE MOURN? 

It is doubtless attributable in part to the wondrous tri- 
umphs of science and art within the present century, by 
means of which time and space have been so far conquered, 
that nations once far distant and necessarily alienated from 
each other, are brought into close communication, and the 
various ties of commerce, and of social interests, and of re- 
ligious interests bring them into a contactof fellowship that 
could not have been known in former times. 

It is likewise unquestionably partly due to the fact that 
this Nation of ours, which has grown to such wondrous 
might and power before the .whole earth, and which is, in 
fact, the hope of the world in all that relates to the highest 
civilization, that sympathy for this Nation and respect for 
this great power leads to these offerings of condolence and 
expressions of sympathy and grief from the various nations 
of the earth, and because they have learned to respect this 
Nation, and recognize that the Nation is stricken in the 
fatal blow that has taken away our President from us. And 



AND ITS GREAT LESSONS. 19 

jet this will by no means account for this raarvelons and 
world-wide sjinpathy of which we are speaking. Yet it 
cannot be attributed to mere intellectual greatness, for 
there have been and there are other great men ; and, ac- 
knowledging all that the most' enthusiastic heart could 
claim to our beloved leader, it is but fair to say that there 
have been more eminent educators, there have been greater 
soldiers, there have been more skillful, and experienced, 
and powerful legislators and leaders of mighty parties and 
political forces. There is no one department in .which he 
has won eminence where the world might not point to 
others who attained higher and more intellectual greatness. 
It might not be considered more righteously here than in 
many other cases; yet, perhaps, it is rare in the history ot 
men and in the history of nations that any one man has> 
combined so much of excellence in all those various de- 
partments, and who, as an educator, and a lawyer, and a 
legislator, and a soldier, and a party chieftain, and a ruler, 
has done so well, so thoroughly well, in all departments, 
and brought out such successful results as to inspire confi- 
dence and command respect and approval in every path of 
life in which he has walked, and in every department of 
public activity which he has occupied. 

Yet I think when we come to a proper estimate of his 
character and seek after the secret of their world-wide 
sympathy and afiection, we shall find it rather in the rich- 
ness and integrity of his moral nature, and in that sincer- 
ity, in that transparent honesty, in that truthfulness that 
laid the basis for everything of greatness to which we do 
honor to-day. I may state here what perhaps is not gen- 
erally known as an illustration of this: 

A THEILLINO INCIDENT — GARFIELD ENLISTING UNDER THE 
BANNER OF CHRIST. 

When James A. Garfield was yet a mere lad in tliis 



20 A GRAND LIFE 

county, a Beries of religious meetings were held in one of 
the towns of Cuyahoga County by a minister by no means 
attractive as an orator, possessing none of the graces of an 
orator, and marked only by the entire sincerity, by good 
reasoning powers, and by earnestness in seeking to win 
souls from sin to righteousness. The lad Garfield attended 
these meetings for several nights, and after listening night 
after night to the sermons, he went one day to the minister 
and said to him : 

" Sir, I have been listening to your preaching night after 
night, and I am fully persuaded that, if these things you 
eay are true, it is the duty and the highest interest of every 
man, and especially of every young man, to accept that re- 
ligion and seek to be a man. But really I don't know 
whether this thing is true or not. I can't say I disbelieve 
it, but I dare not say that I fully and honestly believe it. 
If I were sure that it were true, I would most gladly give 
it my heart and my life." So, after a long talk, the min- 
ister preached that night on the text, "What is Truth?" 
and proceeded to show that, notwithstanding all the various 
and conflicting theories and opinions in ethical science, and 
notwithstanding all the various and conflicting opinions in 
the world, there was one assured and eternal alliance for 
every human soul in Christ Jesus, as to the way of the 
truth and the life that every soul of man was safe with 
Jesus Christ; that he never would mislead; that any young 
man giving Hira his hand and heart and walking in his 
pathway would not go astray, and that whatever might be 
the solution of ten thousand insoluble mysteries, at the end 
of all things the man who loved Jesus Christ and walked 
after the footsteps of Jesus, and realized in spirit and life 
the pure morals and the sweet piety, that he to-night was 
safe, if safety there were in the universe of God ; ^safe, what- 
ever else were safe; safe, whatever else might prove un- 
worthy and perish forever. And Garfield seized upon it 



AND ITS GREAT LESSONS. 21 

after due reflection, and came forward and gave his hand 
to the minister in pledge of acceptance of the guidance of 
Christ for his life, and turned back upon the sins of the 
world forever. 

Tlie boy is father to the man, and that pure honesty and 
integrity, and that fearless spirit to inquire, and that brave 
surrender of all the charms of sin to conviction of duty 
and right, went v.ith him from that boyhood throughout his 
life, and crowned him with the honors that were so cheer- 
fully awarded to him from all hearts over this vast land. 

VIKTUE AND HER KEWAEDS. 

There was another thing. He passed all tl^e conditions 
of virtuous life, between the log cabin in Cuyahoga and 
the White House, and in that wonderful, rich and varied 
experience, still moving up from high to higlier, he has 
touched every heart in all this land in some point or other, 
and he became the representative of all hearts and lives in 
this land, and not only the teacher but the interpreter of 
all virtues, for he knew their wants, and he knew their con- 
dition, and he established legitimately ties of brotherhood 
with every man with whom lie came in contact. 1 take it 
that this law lying at the basis of his character, this rock 
on which his whole life rested, followed up by the perpetual 
and enduring industry that marked his whole career, made 
him at once the honest and the capable man who invited in 
every act of his life, and received the confidence and the 
love, the unbounded confidence and trust, of all who learned 
to know him. 

A ROUND KD LIEE. 

There is yet one other thing that I ought to mention 
here. There was such an admirable harmony of all his 
powers; there was such a beautiful adjustment of the phy- 
sical, intellectual, and moral in his being; there was sunh 



22 A GRAND LIFE 

an equital)le distribution of physical, intellectual, and 
moral forces, that his nature looked out every way to get at 
sympathy with everything, and found about equal delight 
in all pursuits and studies; so that he became, through his 
industry and honest ambition, really an encyclopedia. 
There was scarce any single word that you could touch to 
which he would not respond in a way that made you know 
that his hands had swept it skillfully long ago, and there 
was no topic you could bring before him, there was no ob- 
ject you could present to him, that you did not wonder at 
the richness and fullness of information somehow gathered; 
for his eyes were always open, and his heart was always 
open ; and his brain was ever busy, and equally interested 
in everything — the minute and the vast, the high and the 
low. In all classes and professions of men he gathered up 
that immense store, and that immense variety of the most 
valuable and practical knowledge that made him a man, 
not in one department, but in all rounds, everywhere his 
whole beautiful and symmetrical life and character. But, 
my friends, the solemnity of this hour forbids any further 
investigation in that line, any further detail of a very re- 
markable life. For these details you are familiar with, 
or, if not, they will come before you through various chan- 
nels hereafter. 

THE GREAT LESSON. 

It is my duty, in the presence of the dead, and in view 
of all the solemnities that rest upon us now in a solemn 
burial service, to call your attention to the great lesson 
taught you, and by which we ought to become wiser, and 
purer, and better men. And I want to say, therefore, first 
of all, that there comes a voice from the dead to this entire 
nation, and not only to the people, but to those in places 
of trust — to our legislators and our govern<irs, and our 
military men, and our leaders of parties, and all classes 



AND ITS GREAT LESSONS. '23 

and creeds in the Union and in the States, as well as to 
those who dwell in the humblest life, qualified with the 
dignities and privileges of citizenship. 

The great lesson to which I desire to point you can be 
expressed in a few words. James A. Garfield went through 
his whole political life without surrendering for a moment 
his Christian integrity, his moral character, or his love 
for the spiritual. 

Coming into the exciting conflicts of political life with a 
nature capable as any of feeling the force of every temp- 
tation, with temptations to unholy ambition, with unlawful 
prizes within his reach, with every inducement to surrender 
all his religious faith and be known merely as a successful 
man of the world — from first to last, he has manfully ad- 
hered to his religious couvictious and found more praise, 
and gathers to him in his death all the pure inspirations 
of the hope of everlasting life. 

I am very well aware of a feeling among political men, 
justly shared in all over the land by those who engage in 
political life, that a man cannot afford to be a politician and 
a Christian. That he must necessarily forego his duty to 
God, and be abandoned in different measures of policy that 
may be necessary to enable him to achieve the desired re- 
sult. Now, my friends, I call your attention to this grand 
life, as teaching a lesson altogether invaluable just at this 
point. I want you to look at that man. I want you to 
think of him in his early manhood. He was so openly com- 
mitted to Christ and the principles of the Christian religion 
that he was frequently found, among a people who allow 
large liberty, occupying a pulpit, and you are within a few 
miles of the spot where great congregations gathered, when 
he was as yet most a boy, just emerging into manhood, week 
after week, and hung upon the words that fell from his lips 
with admiration, wonder and enthusiasm. It was that 
when he was known to be occupying this position they in- 



24 A GRAND LIFE 

vited him to become a candidate for the Ohio State Senate. 
It was with the full knowledge of all that belonged to him 
in his Christian faith and his eflPorts to lead a Christian life, 
that this was tendered to him; and without any resort to 
any dishonorable means he was elected, and served his State 
and began his legislative career. 

When the country was called to arms, when the Union 
was in danger, and his great heart leaped with enthusiasm 
and was filled with holiest desire, and ambitious to render 
some service to his country, it required no surrender of the 
dignity and nobleness of his Christian life to secure to him 
the honors that fell on him so thick and fast, and the suc- 
cesses that followed each other so rapidly as to make him 
the wonder of the world, though he ventured upon that 
career wholly unacquainted with military life, and could 
only win his way by the honesty of his purpose and the 
diligence and faithfulness with which he seized upon every 
opportunity to accomplish the work before him. Follow 
him from that time until he left the service in the field. The 
people of his district sent him to Congress, their hearts 
gathering about him without any efibrt on his part, and 
they kept him there as long as he would stay, and they 
would have kept him there yet if he had said so. He re- 
mained there until, by the voice of the people of this State, 
when there were other bright, and strong, and good names 
— men who were entitled to recognition and reward, and 
worthy every way to bear senatorial honors — ^he was sent 
to the United States Senate. Yet there were such currents 
of admiration, and sympathy, and trust, and love, corning 
in from all parts of the State, that the action of the Legis- 
lature at Columbus was but the echo of the popular voice 
when by acclamation they gave him that place, and every 
other candidate gracefully retired. 

And then, again, when lie went to Chicago to serve the 
interests of another; when, 1 know, his ambition was fully 



AND ITS GREAT LESSONS. 25 

satisfied, and he had received that on which his heart was 
set, and looked with more than ghidness for a path in life 
which he thought his entire education aud culture had pre- 
pared him ; when, wearied out with every effort to com- 
mand a majority for any candidate, the hearts of that great 
convention turned on every side to James A. Garfield. In 
spite of himself and against every feeling, wish, and prayer 
of his own hoart, this honor was crowded upon him; and 
the Nation responded with holy enthusiasm from one end 
of the land to the other; and in the same honorable way he 
was elected to the Chief Magistracy under circumstances 
which, however hitter the party conflict, caused all hearts of 
all parties not only to acquiesce, but to feel proud in the 
consciousness that we had a Chief Magistrate of whom 
they need not be ashamed before the world, and unto whom 
they could safely confide the destinies of this mighty Na- 
tion. 

TRUTH IS THE SURE AND ETERNAL FOUNDATION. 

Now, gentlemen, let me say to you all, those of yon 
occupying great places of trust who are here to-day, and the 
mass of those who are called upon to discharge the respon- 
sibilities of citizenship, year by year, the most invaluable 
lesson that we learn from the life of our beloved, departed 
President is that not only is it not incompatible with suc- 
cess, but it is the surest means of success, to consecrate heart 
and' life to that which is true and right, and rise above all 
questions of mere policy, wedding the soul to truth and 
rio-ht, and the God of truth and righteousness in holy wed- 
lock, never to be dissolved. 

I feel, just at this point, that we need this lesson, in this 
great, wondrous land of ours, this mighty Nation, in its 
marvelous upward career, with its ever-increasing power, 
opening its arms to receive from all lands the people of all 
languages, all religions, and all conditions, and hoping, in 



26 A GRAND LIFE 

the warm embrace of political brotherhood, to blend them 
with us, to melt them into a common mass, so that, when 
melted and run over again, it becomes like the Corintliian 
brass, and in one type of manhood, thus incorporating all 
the various nations of the earth in one grand brotherhood, 
presenting before the nations of the world a spectacle of 
freedom, and strength, and prosperity, and power, beyond 
anything the world has ever known. 

But let me say that the permanency of the work and its 
continued enlargement must depend on our maintaining 
virtue as well as intelligence, and making dominant in all 
the land those principles of pure morality that Jesus Christ 
has taught us. Just as we cling to that we are safe, and 
just as we forget and depart from that we proceed toward dis- 
aster and ruin, and this, now when we see what has been 
accomplished in a mighty life like this, is an instance of 
the power of truth and right which spreads from heart to 
heart, and from life to life, and from State to State, and 
iinally from nation to nation, until, these pure principles 
reio-ning everywhere, God shall realize his great purpose, 
so long ago expressed to us in the words of prophecy, that 
the kingdoms of this world are become the Kingdoms of 
our God and of his Christ; so that, then, over the dead 
body of James A. Garfield may all the people join hands 
and swear by the Eternal God that they will dismiss all 
unworthy purposes, and love and worship only the true and 
the right, and in the inspiration of the grand principles 
that Jesus Christ has taught, seeking to realize the grand 
ends of the high civilization to which His word of truth 
and right continually point us. I cannot prolong my re- 
marks to any great extent. 

There are two or three things that I must say, however, 
before I close. There is a voice to the Church in this 
death that I cannot pause now to speak of particularly. 



AND ITS GREAT LESSONS. 27 

There is a tenderer and a more awful voice that speaks to 
the members of the family — to that sacred circle within 
which really his true life and character were better devel- 
oped and more perfectly known than anywhere else. What 
words can tell the weight of anguish that rests upon the 
hearts of those who so dearly loved him, shared with him 
the sweet sanctities of his home — the pure life, the gentle- 
ness, the kindness, and the manliness that pervaded all his 
actions, and made his home a charming one for its inmates, 
and for all that shared in his hospitalities. It is of all 
things the- saddest and most grievous blow, that those 
bound to him by the tenderest ties in the home circle, are 
called to yield him to the grave, to h^ar that voice of love 
no more, to behold that manly form no longer moving in 
the sacred circle of home, to receive no more the benefit of 
the loving hand of the father that rested upon the heads of 
his children, and commended the blessings of God upon 
them. 

THE MOTHEE. 

The dear old mother, who realizes here to-day that her 
four- score years are, after all, but labor and sorrow— to 
whom we owe — back of all I have spoken of, the education 
and training that made him what he was, and who has been 
led from that humble home in the wilderness, side by side 
with him in all his elevation, and assured him the triumph 
and the glory that came to him step by step, as he mounted 
up from high to higher, to receive the highest honors that 
the land could bestow upon hiq>; left behind him, linger- 
ing on the shore where he has passed overto the other side 
what words can express the sympathy that is due to her. or 
the consolation that can strengthen her heart and give her 
courage to bear this bitter bereavement? 

THE WIFE. 

And the wife, who began with him in young womanood, 



28 A GRAND LIFE 

who has bravely kept step with him right along through all 
his wondrous career, and who has been not only his wife, 
but his friend and counselor through all their succession of 
prosperities and his increase of influence and power, and 
who, when the day of calamity came, was there, his minis- 
tering angel, his prophetess and his priestess, when the cir- 
cumstances were such as to forbid ministrations from other 
hands, speaking to him the words of cheer which sustained 
him through that long, fearful struggle for life,_and watch- 
ing over him when his dying vision rested upon her beloved 
form, and sought from her eyes an "insuring gaze that 
should speak when words could not speak. 

THE CHILDREN. 

And the children, that have grown up to a period when 
they can remember all that belonged to him, left fatherless 
in a world like this; yet. surrounded with a Nation's sym- 
pathy and with a world's affection, and able to treasure in 
their hearts its grand lessons of his noble and wondrous 
life, may be assured that the eyes of the Nation are upon 
them, and that the hearts of the people go out after tbem. 
While there is much to support and encourage, it is still a 
sad thing, and calls for our deepest sympathy, that they 
have lost such a father, and are left to make their way 
through this rough world without his guiding hand or his 
wise counsels. But that which makes this terrible to them 
now is just that which, as .the years go by, will make very 
sweet, and bright, and joyous memories to fill all the lips 
of the coming years. By the very loss which they deplore, 
and by all the loving actions that bound them in blessed 
sympathy in the home circle, they will live over again ten 
thousand times all the sweet life of the past, and, though 
dead, he will live with them, and though his tongue be 
dumb in the grave will speak anew to them ten thousand 
beautiful lessons of love, and righteousness, and truth. 



AND ITS GREAT LESSONS. M 

THB DIVINB BENEDICTIONS. 

May God, in His infinite mercy, fold them in His arms 
and bless them as they need in this hoar of darkness, and 
bear them safely through what remains of the troubles and 
sorrows of the pilgrimage unto the everlasting home, where 
there shall be no more death, nor crying, neither shall there 
be any more pain, for the former things shall have forever 
passed away. We commit you, beloved friends, to the arms 
and to the care of the everlasting Father who has promised 
to be the God of the widow and the father of the father- 
less, in His holy habitation, and whose sweet promise goes 
with us through all the dark and stormy paths of life: " I 
will never leave thee nor forsake thee." I have discharged 
now the solemn covenant trust reposed in me many years 
ago, in harmony with a friendship that has never known a 
cloud, a confidence that has never trembled, and a love that 
has never changed. Fare thee well, my friend and brother; 
"Thou hast fought a good fight; thou hast finished thy 
course; thou hast kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid 
up for thee a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the 
Righteous Judge, will give to thee on that day, and not 
unto thee only, but unto all them also who love His appear- 
ing/* 



JAMES A. GARFIELD-A CITY SET ON A HILL 



By Prof. Swing. 



Delivered In Music HaU, Chicago, Sept. 25, 1881. (Full report) 
" A city set on a hill cannot be hid." Matt. 5:15. 

In that part of our earth which was made memorable by 
the presence of Jesus, many of the cities and towns were 
located upon the summit of a hill or mountain. The op- 
pressive temperature of the summer months, and military 
considerations, and also a sense of the beautiful, led those 
who were about to found a village or a city to seek not al- 
ways some river-bank or lake-shore, but some hill, or crag, 
or mountain. Nazareth, the town of Christ's early life, 
was on a height, and on one side there was a fearful preci- 
pice, down which the oifended citizens threatened to throw 
Him who had rebuked their sins. The two mountains, 
Moriah and Sion, remind us that Jerusalem was seated 
upon lofty heights, and was a grand spectacle to the traveler 
who was journeying thither in its palmy days. The Tem- 
ple of Solomon, the palaces of the King and his court, 
with the walls and watch-towers, made up an impressive 
scene to all coining along the valleys of Kedron and Ilin- 
nom, and fully justified the thought of Christ that " a city 
Bet on a hill cannot be hid." 

(30) 



A CITY SET ON A HILL. 31 

Tlie domain of Christ was spiritual; when He spoke of 
material things He had the spiritual qualities of our world 
in His mind. He wished that His disciples might possess 
virtues so great and so active that all society might behold 
and enjoy their righteousness and benevolence. The ages 
had been full of diminutive persons who lived only for self 
and for ail small results — persons like to lighted candles 
placed under a bushel. It was time other forms of soul 
should appear; time for the world to have minds and hearts 
that should be as large and visible as cities upon mountains. 

Soon after the wreat Palestine Teacher had uttered His 
wish and haA given the nations a specimen of a soul too 
large and too lofty to be concealed, the dream began to find 
fulfillment in many of the departments of human life. 
Thought and sentiment began to be enlarged, history begtm 
to record greater actions and to receive into its storehouse 
greater biographies. There came along in the living tide 
men whose heads rose above the multitude like the tall 
cliflf which " midway leaves the storm." 

HUMAN GREATNESS AND SOKKOW. 

Our Nation mourns to-day the loss of one too lofty to be 
concealed. All the grades of society, looking up from the 
door of cottage or palace, see this outline of a scholar, and 
statesman, and soldier, and President, and all mourn that 
the image is no longer to be seen in life, but only in death's 
pallor. The spectacle is made unusual, not only by the 
merit of the d^ad man, but also by the savage cruelty of the 
wound that robbed this citizen of his existence. The eighty 
days of physical and mental suffering, of alternate hope and 
fear, days which reduced a powerful man to the powers of 
only an infant, add their awful part toward placing this 
name fully before the civilized portion of the world. Made 
conspicuous by his character and works, Mr. Garfield be- 
comes conspicuous by his misfortune. Thus this figure 



32 JAMES A. GARFIELD; 

stands as upon a hill, and it will require centuries full of 
men and of events to hide its colossal outline from the gaze 
of mankind. Man is drawn toward the pathetic. "What 
touches his heart, touches also his memory. Pity often 
makes up a large element in love. Had Mr. Garfield died 
of disease or by the limitation of nature, he would have been 
a large subject of study, but millions will read his biography 
in coming years because it ends in the awful cloud of trag- 
edy. What do we witness to-day, and' what will those 
behold who shall in future times run over the black and 
white page in history — black with misfortune, white in vir- 
tue? It must come to us as a peculiar fact that two of the 
greatest of American names are now made more sacred by 
the sadness of their deaths. As though ftie overruling 
Providence desired that the young men of this era and of 
future times should study deeply the lives of Garfield and 
Lincoln, their deaths were made tragic to allure the student 
toward their chapters in the annals of society. 

YOUNG GAKFIKLD AND LIBEKTT. 

Looking at this man, not easy to be hidden, we see the 
ability of our country to produce a high order of manhood. 
That liberty which in name has been the ideal condition of 
all ages, here verifies all the old hopes and produces a sym- 
metrical character strong on every side. When a lad, this 
Garfield enjoyed the free play of all his intellectual atid 
emotional faculties. He was free to move toward books, 
and profession, and wisdom. All the gates to success would 
open to him as they had opened to a Webster or a Clay. 
He was not imprisoned by birth nor by caste. The path 
to law or statesmanship was as free to him as the path along 
the canal, and out of this freedom of a continent came an 
ambition of great power. Often when distinguished visit- 
ors appear in London they are given the freedom of the 
city in a gold box — an elegant letter, before which the doors 



A CITY SET ON A HILL. 83 

of galleries, and libraries, and parliaments, and cathedrals 
flj open. 

To this youth, poor and unknown, the Nation gave the 
freedom of the whole circle of human acquisition, from the 
study of Greek to a place in the army ; from the hall of the 
law- maker to the chair of a President; and his ambition 
and energy were inspired by the generous offer. Freedom 
does not confer merit, but it affords an opportunity, and 
even allures the heart along by its possible rewards. It 
creates a landscape which charms the eye of each one eet- 
ting out upon the journey of life. Despotism offers a des- 
ert to all the humble of birth. If poor and of low parent- 
age, the mind sees only an arid plain, without tree or blos- 
som, but the liberty and equality of this land make it op- 
tional with the traveler whether the plain he is to pass over 
shall be a desert or a magnificent garden. All is left to 
personal taste, and industry and will. And this taste, and 
industry, and personal power, are developed by the many, 
and great rewards offered to their growth. Mr. Garfield ia 
one more witness in this great spiritual trial, and his testi- 
mony is direct, that the liberty of America is the greatest 
opportunity ever offered to man as man. Elsewhere re- 
wards are offered to the few ; here all are invited to the best 
feast of earth. 

LESSONS FOR THE TOUKO. 

In this eminent man the youth of to-day may learn that 
early poverty and hardsliips, instead of breaking the heart, 
need only sober the judgment and compel that common 
sense to come early and richly, which to the children of 
luxury comes scantily and comes late, if ever it finds a 
dawn. "We can now look back and perceive that the hard- 
ships in the youth of him who died as a President was 
only a condition of things which made all the philosophy 
which came to the young man assume a practical form. It 
3 



84 JAMES A. GARFIELD; 

was not thought a philosophy unless it held in its solution 
much of human happiness; for when a toiler along a canal 
meditates, it will be for the welfare of man; jiist as when a 
slave thinks, he tliinks of liberty; just as wlien a fever- 
patient dreams, his dream is about cold water. It has been 
stated recently that the dreams and laws of reform and all 
welfare do not come down from the rich and great, but 
up from the poor. Therefore those statesmen who 
have tasted some of the bitter things of the world know 
best how badly the waters need sweetening. This jiatient 
toiler wrought out an economy for the millions of youth 
here and everywhere. He showed what will and industry 
and exalted purposes can accomplish in this wide land — 
that all the young need ask as an endowment is mental and 
physical health. That is the essential capital upon which 
to base a large business in things either mental or spiritual. 

man's dignity and greatness. 

Out of energy and taste comes the real dignity of man. 
This dead President carries us back to the theory of old 
Plato, that motion or energy lies at the origin of Tie uni- 
verse; that the starry skies and the variegated earth are only 
expressions of the self-moved mind. To this notion this 
one heart brings us back, for out of its self-moved depths 
there issued a moral world of great attractiveness. Edu- 
cation, learning, religion, politics, duty, honor, and high 
office emerged from the mind which began its career far 
down in weakness. That force made all the humble days 
and years to be rich veins of the later silver and gold. 

As iu the theology of nature we gather up the infinite 
phenomena of laud, and sea, and sky, and say the One mind 
made all these wonderful and beautiful things, so in reading 
this biography, whose last page has just been written in 
tears, the reader will say, Behold what goodness and great- 
ness have moved out of that one heart iu royal pageantry I 



A CITY SET ON A HILL. 85 

Was James A. Garfield great? Ask those early years, 
when ad v^erse winds always assailed his bark; ask the nights 
of study; ask the schools where he taught; ask^^the place 
where he worshiped; ask the halls where he helped enact 
wise laws; ask the battle-fields where he led soldiers; ask 
the magnificent Capitol where he was crowned as republi- 
cans crown their chieftains; ask the cottage where he 
died. 

If out of the answers to these questions there comes not 
the witness of greatness, the human heart must henceforth 
toil and long in vain. Earth has no greatness. And yet 
all this human excellence grew up oat of our national re- 
sources, as though to show the world the peculiar richness 
of the soil; and grew inland so far that we cannot say 
that England or Europe combined with America to cause 
this character. 

The boy and man lived in the heart of the continent all 
surrounded by his country; and he lies in his coffin to-day 
a dead child of his Nation. The country mourns to-day, not 
only because a man has died, and died unjustly and pain- 
fully, but also because that man was her son. She had 
reared him. she saw her own likeness in his face, she loved 
him; in him were a mother's hopes. This land herein 
shows not only the power of its institutions to fashion a po- 
ble character, but that power of appreciation and grief 
that can weep for one thus overtaken by death. 

SIGNS OF A HIGHER CIVILIZATION. 

In the scene of these few days we must mark some signs 
of a higher civilization and a more sensitive brotherhood. 
Looking at the assassin we might despair of tin iM-esent 
and the future. We might wonder what is tlR lue of 
school-house, and church, and literature, and freedom, and 
the eloquence over human rights, if out of these beautiiul 
things there can stalk a man much more cruel than a brute 



36 JAMES A. GARFIELD; 

But while the heart wonders and sinks over the name of 
that one savage, it is cheered by seeing a whole civilized race 
moved by a divine pity. 

One vile hunian creature wished to remove Garfield from 
life, but millions upon millions wished him to live — live 
happily and live long. Men of wealth and men of poverty, 
men of learning and men of scanty education, men of all 
the political parties, men in the South and men in the 
North, and the crowned Kings and Queens, loved the life of 
this one man, and would, by their esteem, have carried him 
beyond the common three-score years of pilgrimage. His 
death was desired by the lowest one of the human race; it is 
lamented by the entire population of two continents. 

If we count or measure these tears, if we see the Queen 
of England ordering her court to put on the emblems of 
mourning, we cannot but conclude that the hate of the one 
assassin is sublimely outweighed by the esteem of the 
world. In the presence of such an uprising of brotherly 
esteem the murderer finds his proper depth of infamy. In 
the light of a universal love we see the dark cruelty of the 
crime. 

But we must not forget that we have assembled to-day in 
the name of the weekly service of God. If in this life of a 
President any quality of Christianity is placed upon a 
mountain top, that quality cannot remain hidden. In our 
times, when there is threatened an eclipse of faith, all relig- 
ious minds must be happy to recall the public man who in 
his best manhood saw the power of a belief in God. He 
realized the perfect grandeur of the words: "The Lord 
Reigns." He uttered them in an hour of great national 
darkness, and the populace needed no other eloquence; and 
when in July last the one who had ofiered consolation in 
calau.,ty needed some refuge for himself, he said he was 
ready to die or to live. Not the details of any church faith 
came, but the great ideas of the Christian religion grouped 



A CITT SET ON A HILL. ^, 

^themselves around his bed — the best angels of those sad 
nights, for they were to help him when the skill of man 
should fail. 

gabfield's religion. 

It would be unjust to the name of Christ to say that 
Mr. Garfield's religion was only that of Nature, only such 
general thoughts as were cherished by Greek and Roman 
pagans. His faith came to him through the Church of 
the age as it communicates its ideas through pulpit and 
press and the Testament, as it is wont to surround and 
teach the young all through the days of formation, of pas- 
sion, and temptation. That Church encompassed this 
youth with its hymns, and morals, and trust, and hope, 
and if at last the world saw evidences of that honor so 
conspicuous in the Sermon on the Mount, and that belief 
in Heaven so visible in Jesus Christ, it is under some obli- 
gation to confess that Christianity helped form that char- 
acter which to-day all admire and lament. Beyond doubt, 
daily association with learned men of all the different re- 
ligious sects, and the daily discovery that many creeds 
made only one kind of religious manhood, turned Mr. 
Garfield away from, the distinctive doctrines of a decomi- 
nation, and led him into the concord of faith rather than in- 
to its discord; but in estimating the greatness of hia charac- 
ter we must declare that his moral symmetry was Christ- 
like, and Christlike his repose in the hope of a second life. 
From his official and personal height he reminds the whole 
land that there should be church doors open to all the youth, 
inviting them away from tiiesins of the street and frorzi the 
freezing touch of a Godless air — there should be a Sr.wday 
secured to the young and old, that there might be hMne 
hours of sunlight for these delicate plants-— faith and f.pir 
itviality. If our Nation, destined in a c^dr.eration or more 
to surpass all upon the globe in power-, ir.rftcrial and men 



38 JAMES A. GARFIELD; 

tal, desires to be governed by able and good men, it must 
see to it that tlie school-honse and the clmrch, with its day 
of rest, are kept open, for through these the youth pass on 
their way to all great beauty of character aud usefulness of 
life. 

GAKFIELD AND LINCOLN. 

It has been the reproach of our country that it is not 
rich in history; that the mind must look beyond the ocean 
or travel beyond the ocean to reach the presence of all that 
is deemed impressive. We have no venerable architecture, 
no historic church, no places of fame, no throne-rooms, or 
prisons, or towers, or crowns, or jewels, made affecting by 
the annals of a thousand years. This objection to our new 
world is well made; but this poverty of our country is be- 
ing rapidly exchanged for riches — the riches seen in such 
men as Lincoln and Garfield, and similar moral products 
of the Republic. A natign will not long remain without 
history when the lives of such men are rapidly entering 
into the great open page. The Old World in its thousand- 
year period, reaching from the tenth century to the nine- 
teenth, cannot point us to better names — names which 
stand for a better union of intelligence, and ability, and 
integrity, and charity, and heroism. Old history can point 
as to violent deaths of rulers, and can say: here Charles !• 
was beheaded, here Mary, Queen of Scots, died, here Marat 
was slain; but our two great Presidents have been slain, 
not by a multitude which was wronged, but by private 
fanatics, in their attack as unauthorized as beasts of prey; 
and, while old history abounds in instances where men died 
for some sins or wrongs, our new history points us to two 
great leaders who were the unhappy victims each of a sin- 
gle wicked heart; and died to gratify no party, but amid 
the tears of all parties and factions of the land. 



A CITY SET ON A HILL. 39 

THE WHITE PAGES OF HISTORY. 

Bapidlj is our cdnntry making up a history wliich will 
surpass those hooks we read in our early years. It cannot 
be afiSrmed of many of these illustrious ones whose names 
besprinkle the records of human life tliat they surpassed this 
Garfield in the power to measure the wants of society, and 
in the sympathy that cannot forget the welfare of the 
people. Where ancient great men trampled about in the 
living fields, this man walked softly, fearing lest some flower 
might be crushed. That attachment to the aged mother, 
that measureless attachment to the wife, were only eviden- 
ces that this President was the type and product of a new 
age wliich was putting aside ferocity, and was reaching a 
sensibility as to human rights which was not present in the 
men who ruled once those nations which now boast of pos- 
sessing history. The American pages may not be many, 
but comparatively they are white. 

Must we not to-day read anew the lesson of mortality % 
Must not we who have come into this church from the 
many paths of the world, along which paths we, too, are 
allured by some one of the many forms of ambition and 
hope, feel deeply the undeniable fact tliat we are all hasten- 
ing to the end ? The closing scene may not be tragic, but 
it is coming. We are asked to think of these things by 
the memory of both Lincoln and Garfield, for they were 
both half-melancholy men — the former loving pathetic po- 
etry, the latter even writing it. Lincoln in the height of 
his fame would say : 

" The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne, 
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn, 
The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave, 
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. 

" The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap, 
The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep, 
The beggar who wandered in search of his bread, 
Have faded away Uke the grass that we tread." 



40 JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

And Mr. Garfield, in the Light of his success, looked ont 
upon the earth of his triumph with sad eyes. He was 
unable to forget that he and all he loved were being borne 
along by arms mysterious and powerful. All sensitive 
minds are pathetic and almost superstitious in their hours 
of meditation. The dictates of reason are not able to coun- 
teract fully the deep attachments of the heart to life and 
friends and all the loved ones. When the great are warm- 
hearted they are melancholy and most plaintive. May you 
all possess such a pathetic estimate of our earth; may you 
all see the tombward march of man, so read the vanity of 
riches, and fame, and home, and love, that you shall be 
compelled to become children of God and of Jesus Christ, 
and thus children of the final country that knows no fu- 
neral pageants, no days of bitter disappointment. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD-" MIGHTIER DEAD 
THAN LIVING." 



Bt Db. T. Dk Witt Talmaob. 



Delivered In Brooklyn Tabernacle, Sept. 25, 1881— (ftill report) 

And the dead which he slew at hia death were more than they which he slew In 
his life. Judges, 16:30. 

Sampson in the text was deified and became the Hercu- 
les of Greece. He was a giant warrior born to be a leader, 
and Paul applauds him as a man who through faith sub- 
dued kingdoms. "He was a friend of God and an enemj 
of unrighteousness." But the most memorable scene in hia 
life was the death scene. The Philistines, his enemies, 
gathered round him in a great building to mock him. 
With supernatural strength he laid hold of the pillars and 
flung everything into ruin, destroying the lives of the 3,000 
scoffers, among them the Lords of Philistia. He had slain 
many of the enemies of God during his life, but my text 
says his last achievement was the mightiest. " So the dead 
which he slew at his death were more than they which he 
slew in his life." It is sometimes the case that after a 
most industrious, useful and eminent life, the last hours 
are more potent than the long years that went before. In 
the overshadowing event of this day, we find illustration of 
my text. 

(41) 



42 JAMES A. GARFIELD; 

President Garfield, as many orators will say, was all hia 
life the enemy of sin, the enemy of sectionalism, the enemy 
of everything small-hearted and impure and deha?ing. He 
made many a crushing blow against those moral and polit- 
ical Philistines, but in his death he made mightier con- 
quest. 

The eleven weeks of d^'ing made a more illustrious record 
than the fifty years of living. . " So the dead which he slew 
at his death were more than they which he slew in his life." 
As a* matter of inspiration and comfort, I propose to show 
you that President Garfield's expiration is a mightier good 
than a prolonged lifetime possibly could be. Mind you, 
there was no time at which his death-bed could have been 
so emphatic-. If he had died a few years before, his depar- 
ture would not have been so conspicuous. If he had died 
one month before, his administration would not have been 
fairly launched. If he had died six months later, his ad- 
vanced policy of reform would have cut the friendship of a 
great multitude, and if he had died years after he would 
have been out of office and in the decline of life. But he 
died at the time when all parties had turned to him with 
unparalleled expectation. There has not been a time in all 
the fifty years of his past when his death-bed could have 
been so effective, and in the next fifty years there could not 
have been a time when his death-bed would have been so 
impressive. 

gakfield's remarkable death. 

First, our President's death, more than his life, eulogizes 
the Christian religion. We all talk about the hope of the 
Christian, and tlie courage of the Christian, and the pa- 
tience of the Christian. Put all the sermons on these sub- 
jects for the last twenty years together, and they would 
not make such an impression as the magnificent demeanor 
of this dying Chief Magistrate. He was no more afraid to 



MIGHTIER DEAD THAN LIVING. 43 

die than you are to go home tliis morning. Without one 
word of complaint he endured an anguish that his autopsy 
alone could reveal to the astonished world. For eigiity 
davs in inquisition of pain, yet often smiling, often facetious, 
always calm; giving military salute to a soldier who hap- 
pened to look in at the window, talking with Cabinet offi- 
cers about the affairs of state, reading the public bulletins 
in regard to his condition, watching his own pulse, and so 
undisturbed of sonl that I warrant if it had not been for his 
dependent family and the Nation, whom he wanted to 
serve, he would have been glad to depart any time. O, 
sirs! all he ever did in confirmation of religion in days of 
health was nothing compared with what he did for it in 
this last crisis. James A. Garfield learned his religion 
from his mother, when she was trying, in widowhood and 
poverty, to bring up her boys aright; from that same old 
mother who sat with her Bible in her lap in her bed-room 
last Tuesday, when the news came that her son was dead. 

James A. Garfield had no new religion to experiment 
with in his last hours. It was the same gospel into the 
faith of which he was baptized, when in early manhood he 
was immersed in the river, in the name of the Father, of 
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. That religion had stood 
the test through all the buffetings and persecutions, through 
the hard work of life, and it did not forsake him in the tre- 
mendous close. There have been thousands of death- beds 
as calm and beautiful as this, but they were not so conspic- 
uous. This electrifies Christendom. This encourages the 
pain-struck in hospitals, and scattered all up and down the 
world, to suffer patiently. The consumptive, the cancered 
and the palsied, and the fevered and the dying of all na- 
tions lift their heads from their hot pillows and bless this 
heroic, this triumphant, this illustrious sufferer. The re- 
ligion that upheld him under surgeon's knife, and amid 
the appalling days and nights at Long Branch and at Wash- 



44 JAMES A. GARFIELD; 

ington, is a good religion to have. Show na in all the ages 
among the enemies of Christianity a death -bed that will 
compare with this radiant sunset. 

"SHAKINti HANDS ACKOSS THK PALPITATING HEART." 

Again, our President's death will do more for the con- 
summation of right feeling between North and South than 
all his administration of four years could have accom- 
plished. This is not " shaking hands across the bloody 
chasm " according to the rhetoric of campaign documents; 
this is shaking hands across the palpitating heart, that was 
large enough to take in both sections. This expiring man 
took the hand of the North and the hand of the South and 
joined them together, and practically said, with a dying 
pathos that can never be forgotten, " Be brothers! " Where 
now are the flags at half-mast? At New Orleans and Bos- 
ton, Chicago and Charleston. There is absolutely to-day 
no Republican party and no Democratic party. A new 
party has swallowed up all — a party of national sympathy. 
The bulletins on the south side of Mason and Dixon's line 
have been as carefully watched as on the north side. "We 
have been trying to arbitrate old diflBculties and settle old 
grudges, yet*the old quarrel has ever and anon broken out 
in a new place, but this requiem which shades the land 
forever drowns out all sectional discords. 

After all that has been done and said during the last 
eleven weeks, the people of the South will be welcome in 
all our homes as we shall be welcome in theirs. He who 
tries hereafter to kindle the old fires of hatred will find 
little fuel and no sulphurous match. Alabama and Massa- 
chusetts! stand up and be married. South Carolina and 
New York! join hands in betrothal. Georgia and Ohiot I 
pronounce you one. Whom God hath joined together let 
no man put asunder. The seal is set by the cold and ema- 
ciated hand of our dead President. No living man could 



MIGHTIER DEAD THAN LIVING. 4S 

have accomplished it. More of the sectional prejudices 
and the misinterpretations and the bitternesses of old war 
times have perished in the last eleven weeks than in all the 
seventeen years since the war ended, and so the dead which 
Garfield slew at his death were more than thej which he 
slew in his whole life. 

VALUABLE LESSONS FOK ALL. 

Again, President Garfield's sickness and death have ed- 
ucated the world, as all his life and the life of a thousand 
men beside could not have educated it, in the wonders of 
the human body. For the last two months all Christen- 
dom have been studying anatomy and physiology. Never 
since the world stood has there been so much known about 
respiration, about pulsation, about temperature, about gun- 
shot wounds, about febrile rise, about digestion, about con- 
valescence. The vast majority of the race have hitherto 
wandered about stupidly ignorant of this master-piece of 
God, the human mechanism. The last eleven weeks have 
educated 10,000 nurses for the sick. The invalids of all 
lands for this experience will have better attendance, more 
kindness, more opportunity of restoration. Never has 
there been siich examination of dictionaries to find the 
meaning of a medical phrase. One new word of the 
morning bulletins has set the leaves of all the lexicons in 
America a-flutter. 

Since the time when David, the psalmist, probably re- 
turned from an Oriental dissecting-room, wrote the autop- 
sy, " we are fearfully and wonderfully made," and Solomon, 
who was wise in physiology as in everything else, called 
the spinal marrow the silver chord — (or " ever the silver 
chord be loosed ") and called the head the " golden bowl" 
because the skull is round like a bowl, and the membrane 
which contains the brain as yellow like gold — (or " the gol- 
den bowl be broken") — and called the veins of the human 



16 JAMES A. GARFIELD, 

body a pitcher, because they carry the crimson liquid from 
the heart, the fountain through all the organs of the body 
— ("or the pitcher be broken at the fountain") — and 
called the lungs a wheel, because they draw to itself and 
let go away like a well-bucket, and called the stomach the 
cistern — (the " wheel broken at the cistern,") — and showed 
that he knew what Harvey thought he was discovering 
thousands of years after concerning the circulation of the 
blood, I say, since those obscure times down to these days, 
when physicians are busy instructing the people, and all 
medical colleges and all high schools are scattering physi- 
ology and anatomical information, there never has been so 
much wisdom on these subjects as to-day, and the most po- 
tent of all the doctors has been the sick and dying bed of 
your President. He had often spoken and lectured on 
these subjects in college and on the lyceum platform, and 
was a scientist in all these fields. But in the last eleven 
weeks he has overthrown more ignorance on these import- 
ant subjects than during all his half century of existence. 
" And so the dead which he slew in his death were more 
than they which he slew in his life." 

THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE AND SYMPATHY. 

Again, these last scenes must impress the world as no 
preachment ever did, that when our time comes to go the 
most energetic and skillful phj^sician cannot hinder the 
event. Was there ever so much done to save a man's life 
as the life of President Garfield ? Is the season too hot ? 
There is manufactnred for his sick room in August an Oc- 
tober day. Is he to be transported to the seaside ? All the 
wheels and all the steam whistles, and all the voices along 
the line of progress are hushed for 200 miles, and a new 
section of railroad is built to let him pass over. Added to 
the medical skill of the capital are-the skill of Philadelphia 
aud New York. 



MIGHTIER DEAD THAN LIVING. 47 

All the medical ingenuity of the last 300 years flashes its 
electric liglit upon the wound. Paris and London and 
Edinburgh applaud the treatment. He had all the courage 
that comes from the hand of a wife who was sure he would 
get well. He had physicians who did not stand with cold, 
scientific calculation, studying the case; but splendid men, 
whose hearts grew strong or faint as the patient's pulse was 
strong or faint, and they were as great nurses as they were 
great surgeons. But the doctors could not keep him. 
His wife could not keep him. All the arms of his chil- 
dren hung around»his neck could not keep him. His great 
spirit pushes them all back from the gates of life and soars 
away into the infinities. My Lord and my God! solemnize 
us with this consideration. 

My hearer, if you and I were sick, I am sure we would 
have good medical attendance and good nursing, plenty of 
watchers and plenty of attendants. The world is naturally 
very kind to the sick. We who have good houses would 
have sympathetic, though trembling, hands to hold ours 
in the last exigency. "We all have those who love us as we 
love them, and when the time fixed by the merciful God 
arrives, we must be off: 

There is no need of our getting nervous about it, or fret- 
ting about it. All we have to do is to keep our hearts right 
with God and do our best, and then be as unfluttered as was 
our dying President. If after the mightiest surgery of 
America and the world, he had to surrender on Monday 
nio-ht at the stroke of the Death Angel, surely we cannot re- 
sist it. Li the emphasizing of all these great truths, James 
A. Garfield is mightier lying on his catafalque at Cleveland 
than in the White House, receiving the honors of foreign 
embassage. 

Who knows but that this death will save millions of 
people for this world and the next? Fifty millions of peo- 
ple — nay, North and South, America and Europe and parts 



48 JAMES A. GARFIELD; 

of Asia — called to thoughts of mortality and the great fu- 
ture! Who knows but it may awaken whole nations from 
the death of sin to the life of the gospel? When, last week, 
I saw one line of mourning from Detroit, Mich., to Brook- 
lyn, I wondered if God would not use this great grief for 
the purification of the ISTation. " O, Lord, revive Thy work 
in the midst of the Nation." Enough of the Sabbath- 
breakings and the impurity and the blasphemy and the offi- 
cial corruption in this country 1 By the scowl of this ter- 
rific event let these dogs of hell be driven back to their 
fiery kennels; against all these evils this Presidential giant 
is mightier dead than when alive. 

POOE MRS. GAEFIELD. 

But, while the Nation has this comfort, there are three 
words that will leap to our lips, and they have been reiter- 
ated oftener than any other words for the past few days: 
poor Mrs. Garfield! More pathetic words I never read than 
those in the Friday newspapers which said that, with two 
of her children, she had gone over to the White House to 
get the property of her family, and have it sent to her home 
in Ohio. Can you imagine anything more full of torture 
than the walk through the rooms filled with associations of 
her husband's kindnesses, of her husband's anxieties, and of 
her husband's long-continued physical anguish? She had, 
with her womanly arms, fought by his side all the way up 
the steep of life. She had helped him in their economies 
when they were very poor; with her own needle clothing 
their family, with her own hands making him bread. When 
the world frowned upon him in the days of scandalous 
assault she never forsook his side. They had together won 
the battle, and had seated themselves at the very top to 
enjoy the victory. Then tlie blow came. What a reversal 
of fortune! From what midnoon to what midnight! It is 
said that this will kill her. I do not believe it. The God 



MIGHTIER DEAD THAN LIVING. 49 

who has helped her thus far will help her all the way 
through. When the broken circle gathers in the future 
da3^s at the old home at Mentor, the mighty God who pro- 
tected James A. Garfield at Chickamauga, and in the fiery 
hell of many battles, will protect his wife, his children, and 
his old mother. 

Upon all the seven broken hearts let the grace descend ! 
What consolations thev have ! It was a great thino- to 
have had such a son ! It was a great thing to have been 
the wife of such a man ! It was a great thing to have been 
the children of such a father ! While theirs and ours is 
the grief, I am glad on his account that he has gone. He 
had suffered enough. Enough the cuts of the lancets and 
the thrusts of the catheter, and the pangs of head and side 
and feet and back ! Ascend, O disenthralled spirit, and 
take thy place with those who "came out of great tribula- 
tion, and had their robes made white in the blood of the 
Lamb!" 

ELOQUENT PEROKATION. 

This Samson of intellectual strength, this giant of moral 
power, had — like the one in th'e text — in other days slain 
the lion of wrathful passion, and had carried, the gates of 
wrong from the rusted hinges. But the peroration of his 
life is stronger than any passage which went before. The 
dead which this giant slew in his- death were more than 
those whom he slew in his life. May we all learn the prac- 
tical lessons with which our subject is filled ! Oh. behold 
the contrast between Friday, the 4th of March, 1881, and 
Friday, the 23d of September, 1881. On the former day 
Washington was ablaze with banners. Each State in the 
Union had its triumphal arch. Great men of this country 
and vast populations filled the streets; procession such as 
had never moved from the White House to the Capitol; 
military display that would have confounded hostile na- 
i 



50 JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

tions; the city shaken with cannonading by day, and the 
night on fire with pyrotechnics ! Thousands of all politi- 
cal parties who congratulated the President, pronounced 
that 4th of March the brighest day that had ever shone on 
American institutions. That night, or soon after, in some 
room of the Presidential Mansion, I warrant you there 
assembled, husband and wife and five children and the 
aged mother, taking a long breath after the excitement of 
the inauguration. But, behold, Friday, Sept. 23d, the dead 
President in the rotunda, his bereaved wife at a friend's 
house, a dangerously sick child 400 miles away at" Wil- 
liarastown, Mass.; military on guard around the casket; 
hundreds of thousands of people gazing on the face so 
emaciated that none would know it; the poor, black woman 
falling on lier knees beside the coffin, expressing the an- 
guish of speechless multitudes when she said: "Oh, dear! 
how he must have suffered!" Friday, 4th of March, 18S1! 
Friday, Sept. 23, 1881 ! Of all the words of comfort I have 
uttered to-day I have this lesson, which seems to sound out 
from the tramp of pall-bearers and from the rolling of the 
draped rail train moving Westward, and from the open 
grave now waiting to receive our dead President: " Put not 
your trust in priiices. nor in the sons of men, in whom 
there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to 
this earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." Fare 
thee well, departed chieftain! 



GARFIELD'S GREATNESS OF NATURE. 



Bt President Hinsdale, op Hiram College. Ohio. 



Delivered before the soWIers of Garfield's regiment (42nd Ohio), students of Hiram 
College, and of Williams College, and Garfield's neighborh- od friends, in the 
First Presbyterian Churt h Cleveland, Sept, 25th. 1881. 

AN UNPARALELLED HISTOKY. 

Brethren in the Hiram Fellowship: There was never 
but one man who could fitly preside at a Hiram re- union; 
and he was the man whom we have gathered, not to honor, 
but to remember. With what felicity did he always open 
the service; with what aptness did he guide all our thoughts 
and feelings in right courses? Can you think of Garfield 
as presiding at his own obsequies, not knowing that they 
are his own? If you can, please to consider that I have re- 
signed the chair, and that he is present and presiding in 
onr midst. 

James Abram Garfield: born November 19, 1831; a stu- 
dent at Hiram in August, 1851, at Williamstown in 1854; 
president of the Eclectic Institute in 1857; an Ohio sena- 
tor in 1859; a soldier in 1861; elected a representative in 
Congress in 1862, and re-elected each two years succeeding 
until" 1878; chosen United States Senator in January, 1880; 
nominated by the Republican party for the Presidency in 
June of the same year; elected to that high office in No. 

(51) 



.V2 GARFIELD'S GREATNESS OF NATURE. 

vember following; iuaugiirated Chief Magistrate of the 
great Republic March 4, 1881; shot by the assassin July 2; 
died at Long Branch September 19— these facts and dates 
are the salient points of a carter that, in all the points of 
high character, noble achievement, lofty promises not yet 
fulfilled, beautiful romance, generous enthusiasm, pure am- 
bition, and a final euthanasy, have no parallel in the histo- 
ry of the world. 

Were I limited to one phrase in which to describe Jamea 
A. Garfield, I should say: Greatness of nature. With 
what wealth of noble faculties was he endowed! Close obser- 
vation, high analytical and generalizing ability, solidity of 
judgment, depth and purity of feeling, strength of will, 
power of rhetorical exposition, artistic sense, poetic senti- 
ment, reverence of spirit, and noble courage — these are only 
a few of his great gifts. Were I allowed a second phrase 
of description, I should add: Richness of culture, fullness 
of knowledge, breadth of attainment, discipline of all the 
great faculties of the mind, ripeness of experience — are 
phrases that describe but imperfectly what study and the 
friction of life had done for him. Greatness of nature and 
richness of culture, together fitly describe his life and 
character. And this is in perfect harmony with his own 
maxim: "Every character is the joint product of nature 
and nurture." 

gakfield's many-sidedness. 

One of the most striking facts pertaining to this noble 
product of nature and nurture was his many-sidedness. 
Tennyson said of the Duke of Wellington : 

He stood four-square to every wind that blew." 

This is a striking figure, and it admirably expresses the 
poet's thought. But General Garfield had many more sides 
than four. You can hardly take up a point of observation 



GARFIELD'S GREATNESS OF NATURE. 53 

where jou will not discover something in him both in. 
teresting and striking. He seemed to face in all directions. 
He faced to law and policy, to science and literature, to 
arms and the camp, to religion and the Christian ministry, 
to the Senate and the forum, to the farm and the arts, to 
the social circle and domestic life, and in as many more 
directions as the diamond from its polished facets flashes 
its lustrous beauty. 

But, brethren in the Hiram Fellowship, we are not come 
together to remember the late President in all the pliases 
of his great life and character. To-day we leave the soldier 
to soldiers, the lawyer to lawyers, the statesman to states- 
men. Mr. Garfield faced towards Hiram, and to us this 
will always be the most engaging side of his life. Here we 
recall the sound scholar, the great teacher, the discreet ad- 
ministrator, wise counsellor, sure guide, faithful friend, and 
noble man. Under circumstances that make the world weep» 
are we gathered to hold memorial service for him whose 
fourfold connection with our college, as pupil, teacher, pres- 
ident and trustee, has made the humble name of Hiram 
known all over the land. 

Kapid as was General Garfield's march upon the nation 
still the public as a whole was slow in finding him out. 
They never did fully find him out until his life was ebbing 
away to the music made by the Atlantic sobs. Nay, they 
have not fully done so yet. But I may fairly claim that 
the students of Hiram had discovered his greatness long 
before the year 1860. They were, in fact, the original dis- 
coverers of James A. Garfield. Years ago a Hiram poet 
sang at one of our reunions : 

" ni^ht proud are we the world should know 
A« liora him we long ago 
Found truest helper, friend." 



54 GARFIELD'S GREATNESS OF NATURE. 

YOUNG GARFIELD AT HIEAM. 

Young Mr. Garfield first came to Hiram in August, 1851. 
The next school year he became one of the teachers, and 
continued such until 1854, when he went to college. On 
his graduation, in 1856, he returned as teacher, and the 
next year became the principal. From this time to August, 
1861, when he left his class room for the camp, he was the 
head of Hiram. Within these years, especially lies the ser- 
vice that we should remember. I can only say, in general, 
that it was fully marked by all the great qualities of his 
later life, wealth of knowledge, buoyanc}' of spirits, dignity 
of carriage, wisdom in counsel, kindness and justice, faith- 
fulness of friendship. I sketch the outline and leave it for 
you to fill in the picture. 

Of my own obligations to him, first as a pupil, next as a 
CO- teacher, then as friend — nay as a brother, I cannot 
trust myself to speak. Only he who chanted the elegy 
over the fallen Jonathan could do justice to the theme: 
" How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle. 
O, Jonathan, thou wert slain in thine high places. I am 
distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant 
hast thou been to me; thy love to me was wonderful, pass- 
ing the love of women." 

Garfield's simplicity. 

One of the very grandest phases of this grand man was 
his great simplicity of character. This he retained unsul- 
lied to the end. Nothing could corrode or taint his original 
honest fiber. Principalities and powers, dynasties and do- 
minion, were nothing to him in comparison with the fellow- 
ship of liis early friends. His love for the old school con- 
tinued to the very end, He last visited Hiram not long 
before his final departure for Washington. He made one 
of his beautiful speeches in the chapel. He spoke of the 



GARFIELD'S GREATNESS OF NATURE. 65 

memories tliat laj under the snow; said never since he 
went to the army had he left Hiram with similar feelings; 
said he was about to sail out into unknown seas, but that he 
felt that, on tlie Hiram promontory, he had built a cairn 
from which he could draw supplies throughout the voyage. 
He called for the singing of "Ho! Reapers of Life's Har- 
vest," joined heartily in ^lie song, shook hands with all 
present, and was driven away homeward, 

HIS LAST LETTER TO PRESIDENT HINSDALE. 

The last autograph letter that he wrote me came in the 
midst of the great political tempest, and was in these words. 

" Dear Burke: I throw you a line across the storm to let you know 
tlxat I think, when I have a moment between breaths, of the dear old 
quiet and peace of Hiram and Mentor. Let me hear from you. Inclose 
your letter in an envelope to Crete. As ever yours, 

J. A. Garfield." 

How he longed for this " dear old quiet and peace " in 
all storms, was well known to all his closer friends, and how 
he sighed for it as he lay upon his bed of pain in the heart 
of Washington and by the shore of the far- resounding sea, 
the reporters have told the world. 

TUE NOBLE WIFE. 

There is one person who must not be forgotten here. 
And who is this ? You all anticipate my answer. She is 
a Hiram student, one of our Fellowship, tiie lamented Pres- 
ident's noble wife. Hiram claims two thousand daughters, 
many of whom have done virtuously, but Lucretia excels 
them all. Wheresoever his history shall be read in the 
whole world, there shall also be told what this woman has 
done for a memorial for her. In behalf of all who are in 
the Hiram Fellowship, I wish to thank Mrs. Garfield for her 
heroic devotion, unfaltering courage and immortal hope in 
the sick chamber of her husband. It was not for yourself 



56 GARFIELD'S GREATNESS OF NATURE. 

and your children alone that you wrought, you wrought for 
the Nation, for the world, and for us. We recognize, but 
can never pay our deep debt of obligation. 

But it is all over. Black care, that perched like the night 
raven in our homes the evening of July 2, sits in them still. 
In 1865 I stood with General Garfield in the pouring rain 
on Dr. Robison's door steps, on Superior street, April 28, 
when the hearse of President Lincoln passed by to the pub- 
lic square. Yesterday I passed the same place as I fol- 
lowed Garfield's hearse. To-day his remains lie where Lin- 
coln's lay. And it is left for us, and it is left for all his 
friends, to adjust ourselves to a world that contains no liv- 
ing Garfield. He has left us his life and his spirit. Storm, 
and war, and strife are all over, and he has entered upon a 
quiet and a peace that neither Hiram nor Mentor knew. 
He is thrice happy and doubly immortal; immortal in life 
and immortal in death. 

A MYSTEKY. 

Finally, let -me ask, why was all this permitted? Why 
was the assassin allowed to strike him down? Why were 
not tbes, prayers of the people granted? Why did the night- 
raven never lift his wings and fly away? Why was the 
Most High deaf, and why did the heavens give no sign? 
What a strange providence! How can it fit into any plan 
of Divine wisdom and love! Thus far I have scarcely tried 
to answer these questions, though they have pressed upon 
me many an hour. It is a great test of faith in God. But 
Garfield believed in God. He thought that an unceasing 
purpose runs through the ages and comprehends the lives 
of men; and I think so, too. Still, hitherto I have been 
able to do little more than say, "Lord, I believe; help 
Thou mine unbelief! " For myself, I must leave the prob- 
lem to the future. History will no doubt discover and dis- 
close what passes our power to comprehend. 



I 



GARFIELD'S GREATNESS OF NATURE. 57 

I have dwelt upon the darker side of the great tragedy. 
True, there are great elements of good in the story. These 
I hope will be duly emphasized, for we must not dwell too 
much upon the cypress. In Garfield's young days at Hiram, 
when he was full of bounding life, this saying of Emerson's 
was a o-reat favorite with him : " To-dav is a king in dis- 
guise. Strip off his robes and enjoy him while he is here," 
And I think I hear him who presides over us, in spirit, say: 
*' Be not so carried away with grief, so paralyzed with sor- 
row, so blind with weeping that you cannot discover the 
good that is in it all." Still for one I must declare : 

" I falter where I firmly trod, 

And falling with my weight of cares 
Upon the great world's altar— stairs, 
That slope thro' darkness up to God. 

" I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope 
And gather dust and chaff, and call 
To what I feel Is Lord of all, 
And fiaintly trust the larger hope." 



GARFIELD'S BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 



Bv Hon. J. H. Rhodes— His Schoolmate, of Cleveland. 



Delivered at the Hiram Memorial Service, Sept 25, 1881. 
GARFIELD AT HIEAM. 

To THOUSANDS of men and women these words bring 
Bwift and bappy visions of the golden age, the world over, 
when memory is not busy with the dead past, but when 
life is eager, joyous, standing on tip- toe to catch each new 
bright morning. Then surely it was true, as he often said, 
" Each day is a king in disguise." 

It alwa^^s seems to me now, that from boyhood he was al- 
most conscious of his high destiny in life. He was born 
to lead aud command. He captured all hearts as naturally 
as he breathed. He could not help winning them if he 
would. 

It is not now the time for critical analysis or historic 
preciseness. We see him only through the mist of tears. 
"We cry out in our despair, like infants in the night crying 
for the light, but generations hence his nieniory and his 
life, hallowed by the lapse of years, and looked at through 
a long line of succeeding events, like some grand moun- 
tain peak, viewed from afar, will not be less grand, will 
rise into the heavens with equal glory as now. 

To many who are here to-day, visions come again of Gar- 

(58) 



GARFIELD'S BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 59 

iield in the class-room or the chapel at Hiram. They see a 
fair-faced, blue-eyed young man in the robust vigor of early 
manhood, overflowing with animal spirits and breezy, 
cheerful good nature, standing before a class, and irradiat- 
ing the room with the grand enthusiasms for knowledge 
and ideas which made each pupil feel as if he were in an 
atmosphere highly electrified, out of which he passed, feel- 
ing that life had new meanings to him, and longing for the 
return of the next lesson. The crayon often became a 
magic wand with which new worlds were disclosed to the 
young explorer in search of new continents. 

Observe all things, and question all men, were maxims 
he daily illustrated. No man was so humble, he often re- 
marked, but something new can be learned by talking with 
him. With all men he was, therefore, social. If he did 
not learn anything from another, young Garfield had al- 
ready learned that ideas can only be clearly held when they 
can be clearly clothed in words, and, as long as he could 
find a good listener, he delighted to pour forth his own 
thoughts in words, thus crystalizing ideas and opinions 
already formed. Many a man has wondered at the wealth 
of conversation with which he was flooded. Many a small 
audience thought it strange he should speak as abundantlv 
and as eloquently to them as if there were thousands to be 
moved. All men were foils for his own swift blades, and 
80 he grew daily in strength and breadth. 

He died young, but he was born at the right time. His 
young manhood began with the great stir in modern 
thought w^hich had already revolutionized the world. The 
age of invention and discovery had just begun to usher 
into our modern life the triumphs of electricity and steam. 
The ferment of scientific research had opened up a thou- 
sand new fields of inquiry. The conflict between old de- 
cays and new creations in the world of politics was at hand. 
Literature had just had a new birth, and the modern period 



60 GARFIELD'S BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 

of books and newspapers liacl been inaugurated. I can re- 
member how, in 1S55, 1850, 1857. 1858, 1859 and 18G0, the 
very air seemed surcliarged with the new life that already 
threatened storms and hurricanes. I never heard Inra wish 
he had been born in another age. He did not sigh that his 
lot had not been cast amid the stirring scenes of ancient 
Rome or modern Europe. He was born in America and 
for America, and he lived long enough to see the dawn of 
the modern life and thought, full-orbed and high, advanced 
in the day. He went away from Hiram at twenty-four to 
Williamstown, to return in the fall of 1856, with the bap- 
tism of fire from that new heaven on his heart and head. 
For two years after his graduation at Williams we 
roomed together at Hiram. The old office in the orchard is 
more hallowed to me by those two years of companionship 
than any temple made by human hands. It was both an 
education and an inspiration to hear him at this period. 

PLEASING INCIDENTS. 

It was after his return from Williams College that he 
began to preach. Preaching was a vent for the overflow of 
his energies and activity. In preaching he had a range of 
thought that gave more scope than the school room. The 
efi*ect of two years at the feet of that great teacher, Mark 
Hopkins, was very marked. His thoughts ranged through 
wider circles, whilst the distinctive dogmas of the church 
at Williamstown did not seem to have at-tached themselves 
strongly ; the philosophic and metaphysical methods of 
President Hopkins became a part of his own methods. 
The result of this was that his preaching had a new charm 
for the people who heard him. 

It was during the years that followed his return from 
Williamstown that he found so much inspiration and 
strength from that remarkable woman, Almeda A. Booth, 
whose intellectual grasp and range of thought were only 



GARFIELD'S BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 61 

second in Hiram to his own. He owed much to her, and 
he has made public acknowledgment in a beautiful tribute 
to that woman, whom he compared to Margaret Fuller. 

Whilst teaching at Hiram and preaching in various places 
in Northern Ohio, his mind had turned to the law as a life 
profession, and among the legacies I have of this period are 
synopses made by us of the first two volumes of Bouvier's 
Institutes. The law, in its great principles, its broad gen- 
eralizations, its sacred regard for life and property, its con- 
servative influence and power in maintaining order and 
peace in society, had a great charm to his mind, and I dis- 
tinctly remember that he would synopsize the institutes so 
thoroughly as to cover ever}'^ doctrine laid down. In sub- 
sequent years he achieved distinction for his success in the 
law. But politics, in the higher and almost forgotten mean- 
ing of the word, had become a subject of great interest to 
him. 

The great struggle in the land had already begun, which 
ended in the downfall of American slavery. He was 
intensely absorbed in this great controversy, and soon 
entered as State Senator, upon that public career with which 
the world is so familiar. Into this he poured his energies, 
as he had formerly into teaching and preaching. 

Here, too, in Hiram was continued that devotion to the 
little woman whose name is revered in every home in the 
civilized world. It began a few years earlier at Chester. 
Writing to me in 1871, in the midst of his public life, and 
nearly thirteen years after his marriage, he said: 

" There is not a day when I do not certainly fear such 
completeness will not be allowed to last long on this earth." 
"Yerily, she was the rainbow on his storm of lifcvthe anchor 
on its sea." 

His mind was imaginative, and his temper poetical. The 
freah beauties of "In Memoriam" were his delight, and 



62 GARFIELD'S BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 

thousande of times did I hear him recite, in those early days' 
the passage beginning: "The tide flows down, the wave again 
is vocal in its. wooded walls; my deeper sorrow also falls, 
and I can speak a little there." 

The Cuyahoga, above the rapids at Hiram, will forever 
be associated with him, where once we stopped our horse 
and carriage on the old bridge, and looked up the stream 
and saw from the tall trees on either side what Tennyson 
meant by " wooded walls." 

I must be pardoned for not dwelling further, as there are 
many you wish to hear. It is hard to find any reconcilia- 
tion to the fact that men say he is dead, and that his bodily 
form will no more be visible on earth. It may be that his 
outward frame maj- be resolved again to dust, and become, 
in the long processes of nature, flowers and fruit, clouds or 
frost, but I never can conceive of him as dead. I do not 
belive he is dead. Death has no definition or limitations 
which can include so great a soul. Immortality was no 
myth with him. His voice is still heard. 



THE NATION'S FRIEND. 



By Henry Wattekson (Editor LouisviUe Courier-Journal). 

Delivered In Jeffersonville, Ind., Sept 26, 188L 
HEART TO HEAKT. 

To-DAT, for the first time in fifty, aje, in sixty years, the 
people of the United States are one with one another, and 
stand hand in Jiand, and heart to heart, by the open grave 
of their murdered President. This vast assemblage, these 
paraphernalia of public lamentation, these muflled drums 
and mournful cadences of dead marches— your own sad 
faces and tearful eyes— are not the ofi'erings of a locality, 
nor the offsprings of party feeling. They are universal.' 
Everywhere throughout our dear land— and not alone where 
men are wont to congregate— everywhere— and not any- 
where broken by geographic stops or sectional lines— every- 
where, in the market places and the churches, in the great 
mansions of the rich and the humble cots and cabins of the 
poor, and on the rock-ribbed ridges where the sumach and 
the maple twine their boughs in pious benediction over the 
bended head of New England to the rice-farms and cotton- 
fields of the kneeling South, where the live-oak stands as a 
guard of honor and the magnolia sends its fragrance up to 
God— everywhere, and with all classes, all sects, all condi- 
tions, all ages, but one sight is to be seen this day, but one 

(63) 



64 THE NATION'S FRIEND. 

sound is to be heard — tlie solonin march, the soleran music, 
which bears to their last earthly home the mortal remains 
of James A. Garfield. 

Nor is this grievous spectacle of grief the product of our 
country only, and confined within her borders and to her 
people. The stranger arriving on our shores to-day would 
not need to ask, with Hamlet: 

" —Who is it that they follow, 
And with such maimed rights ?" 

Across the seas, as if borne by the magnetic tides that in 
electric currents ebb and flow beneath the waves, the sorrow 
of America has thrilled the heart of Europe; nor yet there 
alone among crowned heads, uncertain of their crowns, and 
courts, unknowing when their turn may come, since murder 
strikes so close and indiscriminate; but high among the 
crags, where the free Switzer sings of liberty, and in the 
storied groves and sweet meadows of Old England, where 
bells that rang for Hampton and the Iron Duke, for Words- 
worth, the gentle poet, and Albert, the good Prince, are 
ringing into Anglo-Saxon song and legend, the name of 
James A. Garfield. 

Why, why is all this ? I answer, because he was a man, 
and every inch a man, who stood as the representative of 
manhood and the State. 

" What constitutes a State T 

Not high -raised battlement nor labored mound, 

Thick waU and moated gate. 

• * « « • • 

No ; men, high-minded men, 

WJith powers so far above dull brutes endued 

In forest, brake, or den. 

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude; 

Men who their duties know. 

But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain." 

The blow that struck down Garfield, struck at the State, 
and, though it missed the State, it hit the man, and, through 



THE NATION'S FRIEND. 65 

him, touched the nianhood and the womanhood, yea, and 
the childhood, of our time ; and so, we are come to do honor 
to his memory, to take comfort one from another in our 
sorrow, on this, as it were, his last day upon earth, our hero 
and our martyr — who went down because he was clad with 
our sovereignty — our Peasant Chieftain — whose glory 
America gives to the world ! 

WATl'EKSON LOVED HIM. 

I knew him well. I knew him, and I know now that I 
loved him. He was a man of an ample soul, with the 
strength of a giant, the courage of a lion, and the heart of 
a dove. Never lived a man who yearned more for the ap- 
proval of his fellow men, who felt their anger more. Never 
lived a man who struggled harder to realize Paul's ideal, 
and to be "all things to all men." Nor did ever the char- 
acter sketched by Paul find a nobler example, for he was 
" blameless, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, apt to teach, 
not given to filthy lucre." No one without the little fam- 
ily circle of relatives and friends in which he lived will ever 
know how a certain dismal, though in truth trivial, episode 
in his career cut him to the soul. Born a poor man's son 
to live and die a poor man, with opportunities unbounded 
for public pillage — with licensed robbery going on all 
about him, and he pinched for the bare means to maintain 
himself, his wife and his little ones, with decency and com- 
fort — to be held up to the scorn of men as one not honest 
He is gone now, and, before he went, he had outlived the 
wounds which party friends, alike with party foes, had 
sought to put upon his honor; and mayhap, to-day, some- 
where among the stars, he looks down upon the world, and 
sees at last how false, how sordid, how selfish and unreal 
were the assaults of those in whose way he stood. It is a 
pleasure to me to reflect., amid these gloomy scenes, that 
some friendly words of mine gratified him at a moment 
5 



THE NATION'S FRIEND. 



when he suffered most. Not in the last campaign, for it 
would have been a crime in me to have hesitated then. 
But awaj back, when no vision of the Presidency had 
crossed the disc of his aml)iti()n, and when the cruelept 
blows were struck from behind. 



INCIDENTS. 



It is also a pleasure to me to remember the last time I 
saw him. It was an all-nii^ht session of the House, when, 
in company M'ith Joseph Ilawley, of Connecticut, Tlandall 
Gibson, of Louisiana, and Ilandol]:)h Ti;cker, of Virginia, 
we took possession of the committee-room of Proctor 
Knott, who joined us later, and buried all bickerini,^s and 
jars in happy forgetfulness of section and party, and in 
joyous return to nature, and the contemplation 

" Of poesy and philos iphy, 

Arts which I love, for they, my friend, were thine.'' 

I do well remember how buoyant he was that night in 
spirit and how robust in thought; how full of suggestion, 
quick in repartee, unaffected and genial ever; how delight- 
ed to lay aside the statesman and the partisan, and be a boy 
again; and how loth he was, with the rest, to recross the 
narrow confines which separate the real and ideal, and to 
descend into the hot abyss below. I could not have gone 
thence to blacken that man's character any more than do 
another deed of shame; and, Kepublican though he was, 
and party chief, he had no truer friends than the brilliant 
Virginian, whom he loved like a brother, and the eminent 
Louisianian, whose counsels he habitually sought. 

I refer to an incident, unimportant in itself, to illustrate 
a character which unfolded to the knowledge of the world 
through affliction and death, has awakened the admiration 
and love of mankind. All know now that he was a man of 
spotless integrity ; who might have been rich by a single 



THE NATION'S FRIEND. 67 

deflection, but who died poor ; who broadened and rose in 
hi^ht with each rise in fortune ; who wae not less a scholar 
because he had wanted early advantages ; and who, not yet 
fifty, leaves as a priceless heritage to his countrymen the 
example of how God-given virtues of the head and heart 
may be employed to the glory of God and the use of men 
by one who makes all things subordinate to the develop- 
ment of the good within him. I do nut mean to be pane- 
gyrical. I mean to be just, for I would draw from this dire 
experience its true lesson, as that relates to our private no 
less than our public life. 

On all these points we think together. There are not 
two opinions. We stand upon common ground. We shall 
separate and go hence, and each shall take his way. Inter- 
ests shall clash; beliefs shall jar; party-spirit shall lift its 
horrid head and interpose to chill and cloud our better na- 
tures. That is but a condition of our being. We are mor 
tal and we live in a free land. Out of discussion and dis- 
sention ends are shapen, we rough-hewing. In spite of us, 
however, occasions come which remind us that we have a 
country and are countrymen, which tell us we are a 
people bound together by many kindred ties. No matter 
for our quarrels. They will pass away. No matter for our 
mistakes. They shall be mended. But yesterday we were 
at war one with the other. The war is over. But yester- 
day we were arrayed in angry party conflict. Behold how 
its passions sleep in the grave with Garfield. 

I am here to-day to talk to you of him, and through 
him, and in his memory and honor, to talk of our countr^^ 
He was its Chief Magistrate, our President, representative 
of things common to us all, stricken down in the fullness 
of life and hope by wanton and aimless assassination. He 
fell like a martyr; he sufiered like a hero; he died like a 
saint. 

Be his grave forever and aye a trj'sting place for the 



68 THE NATION'S FRIEND. 

people, and from the sods that burst tliereon to let the 
violets through, spring flowers of peace and love for all the 
people. Citizens, the flag which waves over us was his 
flag, and it is our flag. Soldiers, standing beneath that 
flag and in this armed fort of the Eepublic, I salute 
your flag and his flag reverently. It is my flag. 

I thank God, and I shall teach my children to thank God, 
that it did not go down amid the fragments of a divided 
country, but that it floats to-day, though at half-mast, as a 
symbol of union and liberty, assuring and reassuring us 
that, though the heart that conceived the words be cold 
and the lips that utteried them be dumb, " God reigns, and 
the Government at Washington still lives." 



THE CROWN OF MARTYRDOM. 



By Rev. Henkt Ward Beecher. 



Delivered in Peeksklll, N.Y., Sept 23d, 188L 
A WORLD IN MOURNING. 

The time will come when we shall have a riglit to expect 
from competent minds a careful and elaborate biography 
of President Garfield. It ill becomes us at this time, when 
we are all under a cloud, in deep sympathy with one an- 
other, that I should take the time in flights of fancy and in 
eloquent periods. This is a funeral service. We are gath- 
ered together to-night as a household would be gathered 
where the father had been stricken down. We are not 
alone in our sorrow. The world to-day mourns. Not even 
when Lincoln was slain was there such universal sympathy, 
America was then disesteemed by many, little esteemed by 
more, loved by few; but now no other nation commands 
more universal respect, and respect not for the trappings 
of monarchy, not for governmental display, but because she 
has become at once full of strength, brave, honest, and no- 
ble; and there is not an organized Government in the uni- 
versal world that has not had its pulse quickened by the 
impending sorrow that has come upon us. Crowned heads, 
■chief Ministers, men of Legislatures everywhere, and Par- 
liaments, the noblest and the highest, and chiefly the noble 

. (69) 



70 THE CROWN OF MARTYRDOM. 

Queen of our Mother Country, all have taken home this sor- 
row into their own household and made it their own, and 
to-night we are one with the English speaking world; we 
are one with the ci^vilized world, speaking in every tongue, 
but with one heart and one thought of sorrow and sym- 
pathy. The brave man has gone. 

I would not sa}' that President Garfield was endowed be- 
fore all men, but he inherited the best gifts that God ever 
gives to man when he is born, for that which his mother 
bestowed upon him was a wholesome constitution, an 
equable temperament, and a noble example of virtue, in- 
dustry, and frugality. These were as birth-gifts given to 
him, and he did not fritter them away. From his earliest 
life he has shown the one trait of high ideals and persever- 
ance. He fought against poverty and trod it under foot. 
He rose from obscurity, and shone as a star. He fought 
against every adverse circumstance. When the country 
demanded that none of her sons should quail, he pressed 
forward, and his military history is marked with the same 
traits that are so conspicuous. throughout his whole career; 
and now he that stood where mighty batteries were belch- 
ing forth death on every side, and on the field where thou- 
sands of bullets were flying, has fallen beneath the single 
bullet of a dastardlj' assassin, and when he lay upon the 
bed of sickness, the same traits were conspicuous. He met 
death, and grappled with it. For a long time it looked as 
if he would master death. Alas! no. He was ripe. The 
measure of his glory had been filled to him. There was 
given to him, as to the illustrious Lincoln, the crown of 
martyrdom. 

There is not a man worthy of the name that does not just 
as much honor the name of Garfield as if he had helped to 
elect him. There is no more conflict, only the calm of uni- 
versal peace. I look with admiration on the man, with 



THE CROWN OF MARTYRDOM. 71 

profound sympathy upon those who are nearest to him, but 
even greater admiration upon the Nation of which he was 
the ilhistrious head. He was taken as if in a moment, but 
nothing fell with him — no law, no practice, no institution, 
no interest. The vast machinery did not even stop for one 
single moment; every wheel in its place still went on, for 
the Government of the United States is the people of the 
United States, and no man can move or assume an authority 
which restricts or supplants the universal citizenship. He 
has left his post to another and an honored man, for whom 
let us invoke all sympathy from a Divine source while he 
takes upon himself the onerous duties that he must perform. 
But Garfield has. ascended. "We ma}^ weep for him that 
shall never weep another tear. We may crown our rever- 
ence with all tokens of admiration, but in the Divine 
presence he now stands. "What would be to him the tribute 
of the round world when he has ringing in his ears the 
command of the Father to ascend higher ! Sweeter than a 
mother's voice, sweeter than earth's most affectionate tone, 
is the voice of God in approval. 

FOUR CONSPICUOUS NAMES. 

Four names in the line of presidents will stand conspic- 
uous in history — "Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Gar- 
Geld. They have each been men of mark and left their 
impress on the National character. In the few weeks that 
he presided over the destinies of this people he showed the 
possession of yet deeper power than any had anticipated; 
had attracted universal attention and had given promise of 
the richest harvest in the after days. He had proven him- 
self a nobleman. He had gained a name for all time — 
as an officer in the militarj' service, as a member of the 
greatest Legislatures, as President, as a Christian gentle- 
man, as a canonized Martyr. For him no more toil. We 
go on still treading the dusty path. For us are sorrows to 



72 THE CROWN OF MARTYRDOM. 

be nobly borne; for ns weariness; for us sickness, infirccityj 
and, by-and-by, death, Tliese are no more for him. He 
walks the golden street, has thrown down the mantle of 
doubt and trouble, and put on the robes of grace; he has 
gained the rest for which we all pray; he has gone to his 
God. 1 join with you as fellow-townsmen, for Peekskill is 
my home. I know that it is not the scene of my chief 
labors, but T desire, when I am incapacitated for labor, to 
live here and then die among you, and I shall deem it a 
privilege here to-night to open my heart and let streams 
of sympathy flow with yours, to ponder with you on the 
lesson that we have that he, the hero of great or less renown, 
in his death his works will follow him, and that good and 
noble deeds never die. 



GARFIELD'S GREATNESS. 



[The foUowing is the address of Henry Ward Beecher on President Oarfleld, de- 
llvered in Plymouth Congregational Church, Brooklyn, Sept 25, 1881.] 



THE PRATER. 



In his opening prayer, Mr. Beecher said: "Thou hast 

laid Thy hand heavily upon this Nation. Thy servant 

Thou hast taken to Thyself in a way that fills us with 

shame and horror. We have thanksgiving to ofi'er in our 

sorrow that there is no more turmoil and torment for him, 

no more strife for life on a couch of suffering, that rest and 

eternal blessedness are finally his. We thank Thee that 

there has been no shock, no disorganizing of the affairs 

of this great Nation by this event. We believe that 

Thou art anointing this great people, and by this great 

sorrow raising us to a higher plane. For Thy handmaid, 

the mother, for the wife and counselor, for the children, we 

pour out our prayers, and beg Thee to take them into the 

arms of Thy consolation. Let it come it to pass that they 

may rest in the bosom of love of this great people; that 

they may be cherished and consoled. Bless Thy servant 

who has suddenly been called to fill an exalted station. 

Spare his life; defend him from harm; may he have the 

wisdom of God to guide his footsteps. Grant in this 

emergency that he may gird himself up, not in his own 

(73) 



74 GARFIELD'S GREATNESS. 

strengtli, nor in the strength of counselors, but in the 
strength of the Lord Jesus." 

Mr. Eeecher read selections from the 102d and 103d 
Psalms: — "I said, Oh ni}' God, take me not awaj in the 
midst of my days." "As for man, his days are as grass; as 
a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind 
passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall 
know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from ever- 
lasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His 
righteousness unto children's children ; to such as keep His 
covenant, and to those that remember his commandments 
to do them." 

THE DISCOXJESE SHORTNESS OF LIFE. 

How short is human life at the longest. We spend years 
in gathering knowledge, and die just as we get ready to 
use it. We learn how to live only to pass on. Yet we are 
not allowed to live even the short life allotted to man. A 
full life is accounted fourscore years, yet the average one 
is not more than twoscore. The babe grows up to matu- 
rity, but the web is broken, and man stumbles on the 
threshold of his usefulness. Moralists and poets have filled 
the world with sad strains at the shortness of life, and to- 
day we stand before a strange manifestation of Providence. 
Why is it that the good man dies, a])parently in the be- 
ginning of his usefulness ? Why is it that the hero to 
whom we pinned our faith has passed away ? We had 
gone through the war victoriously, and had lived through 
reconstruction; we had fought the fight against greenback 
money and won; we had just entered on the skirts of our 
promised land, when our leader, our Joshua, was stricken 
down. 

Garfield's greatness. 

He was a man who united the best elements of his fellow 



GARFIELD'S GREATNESS. 75 

countrymen; he was firm, yet gentle, and in him the lion 
and the lamb seemed to lie down together; he was not an 
empty partisan, but he looked at all questions with a calm 
and unbiased mind; he had a love for lenruing, and he had 
acquired it by hard and incessant labor; he had been bred 
upon hardship and poverty, and he had lived by the sweat 
of his brow; mcjreover, he had been a preacher of rigliteous- 
uess. With almost the first sound of the trumpet he had 
gone Ibrth to defend his country, and he earned a name as 
one of her leading generals. Later he entered the highest 
councils of the Nation, and from that time on his name was 
found connected with every advanced measure. 

At length the Republic called Garfield to its highest 
ofiice, because he was the very man for the place. Call the 
names uf all the men honorable and useful in the courts, the 
army, and the navy, or in mercantile life — was there any 
one of them more needed than he was ? Four mofiths only 
he presided over the Nation, but his administration gave 
splendid promises of usefulness. But that bright vision 
has vanished. "Garfield has been shot !" flashed along the 
telegraph wires, and the whole world wept with his family. 
The drama is now ended. For weeks he lay fighting for 
his life. There were no more laurels to put on his brow, 
and God took him. After twenty years the train bore him 
westward. He who entered Washington four months before 
amid the clanging of bells and the joyous shouting of the 
people was borne away in silence. Such a funeral march 
as that was never seen. Along its route men forgot to 
sleep, and watched its passage at ail times of the night with 
bowed heads and in silence. "Blessed are the dead that 
die in the Lord." For them there are no more burdens or 
sorrows. Around the burial place of this man let mothers 
gather with their children, to teach them to be brave and to 
be honest. 



76 GARFIELD'S GREATNESS. 

COMFORT IN SORROW. 

Bnt let us turn to the sublime God from these human 
measurements. What is time to Him? Man's life is like 
the bubble on the sea, which rises to the surface and gleams 
brightly in the sun, but only to burst. God measures all 
events by eternity, so that which may seem to us to be con- 
fusion is a benefit in His eyes. And so some benefit may 
arise to us from this disaster. Sometimes a single act may 
outweigh the rest of a man's life. So from Garfield's death 
we may gain something, although not in an exactly similar 
way. Washington is revered for his life, but how much 
more elevated his memory would have been if he had met 
with a tragic death for his country. Wise and gentle as 
our Savior's life was, His death was of much more impor- 
tance. Although we hoped to reap so much from Garfield's 
life, we may reap even more from his death. The North 
and South have felt for the first time the healing balra of 
mutual sympathy and grief. The wounds left by the war, 
and not yet healed over, will be mollified. There has been 
no division in the Nation's sorrow, and it's whole heart has 
beaten together. Charleston has felt the loss as bitterly as 
Philadelphia, and New Orleans has been as sincere in her 
grief as New York. Nor have party lines divided this 
sympathy. 

UNITY OF MANKIND. 

But still more striking than the unity of the Nation in 
its grief has been the unity of mankind. When Lincoln 
was shot, the world was shocked rather than grieved. 
England had not yet learned wisdom, while the hands of 
France were still red with the blood of Mexico. But now 
no nation has been so obscure that it has not expressed its 
sorrow. From Russia and Turkey on the East to Japan 
on the West, there has been a common sorrow. I think 



GARFIELD'S GREATNESS. T7 

that never before has the heart-blood of the world been so 
stirred. But if this is the first time, may it not be the 

last? 

This sympathy had also a moral comfort. Were there 
ever before so many prayers offered up? The Mussulman, 
the Catholic, the Protestant— all prayed to God as thej 
knew Him, and in their own formality. But did God re- 
fuse to answer them, aud is prayer a fiction? In the lower 
sphere God gave no answer; but in the higher one He did. 
Is there no other answer of prayer save in continuance of 
life? Could we not be more fortified and strengthened by 
President Garfield's death than by his life? Is this not a 
more sublime answer to our^prayers? We see people dying 
everywhere; but except in the case of near relations or 
friends we scarcely feel that death is an affliction. But 
why should Garfield not die? Because we looked upon 
him as a tree from which we should gather only good fruit? 
But is it not better to have its branches raised higher so 
that it will benefit the whole world? 

INSTRUCTIVE LESSONS. 

There are some lessons to be drawn from President 
Garfield's death, and there is one which I wish particularly 
ambitious young men should profit by. Our Government 
may be compared to a stately mansion which many are 
desirous of entering. Some walk boldly up to its front 
entrance and go in; but others seek to enter by the back 
way, from which all the refuse comes. By the nature of 
our Constitution we are obliged to send men to our legisla- 
tive bodies, and sometimes the ones selected are not the 
most suitable persons. But we cannot bear to have the 
public ideal destroyed and the opinion prevail that he who 
would enter politics must give up his honor, and advance 
by ignoble means. And when we behold a man Struggling 
honorably for a political career and equipping himself 



78 GARFIELD'S GREATNESS. 

as a statesman, it is an example that honor and integ 
ritj are not incompatible with political advancement 
and that man's life will be an example as Washington's 
has been. 

In the simplicity of our habits, there has been no need 
of protection around our Presidents. And it is still true 
that public opinion, with us, is better than the guard of 
any European monarch. Tliere is no sense liere of wrongs 
inflicted upon generation after generation to stir men up 
to madness against their rulers. Our laws are of our own 
making, and can be changed. Then only a short time must 
pass before we are freed from the most hateful ruler. Yet 
our legislation is incomplete. I would not have a guard 
if I were the President, for I had rather take the bnllet 
than be protected from my fellow-citizens. But an attempt 
on the life of a man whom we have elected as our leader, 
and upon whom we all rely, should be treason, and its pun- 
ishment should be death. But let this be done by law. 
No man has any more right to assassinate Guiteau than he 
had to assassinate President Garfield. Let us stand for the 
administration of justice. When the Rebellion ceased, 
neither bullet, sword nor halter slew one man, and the 
moderation of our people impressed the whole world. 
And if Guiteau should die unlawfully there would be a 
spot upon our escutcheon. I have been angry with the 
miscreant, but I have obeyed the command of the Lord 
not to let the sun go down on my anger. Indignation has 
had its day; now let law have its day, I have a right to 
speak thus of Guiteau. He once was with us, but not of 
us. He sat in this sanctuary among the worshipers. 
Robert Burns expressed a faint hope in one of his poems 
that the devil might yet be turned around the corner and 
be saved. Let us hope that Guiteau's life will not be ended 
suddenly by that wanton sentiment into which you have 
blown a breath. 



GARFIELD'S GREATNESS. 79 

But what shall we say of that sorrowful group, Garfield's 
family; of the mother, whose son preceded her, and of the 
wife, who had shared her husband's elevation? Love needs 
the presence of the loved one, and chastened though she is, 
there is no one that needs oar prayers more than she. 
May the blessing of God, enriched by the tears of a whole 
people, rest upon his children, and may his sons follow in 
his footsteps. 



COMFORT IN SORROW. 



Bt Robekt Collykr, D.D. 



DellTered in the Chorch of the Messiah, New York, Sept. 2S, 18SL 

We can meet no more as we did last Sunday, with some 
gleam of hope left, that a joyful word would soon come to 
whisper that God would give back the President to us. 
Wliat we have feared so long has come upon us. Out of 
the midnight came the sad cry, "The President is dead." 
After the tossing to and fro unto the close of day the Angel 
came, and the gates of eternal morning opened swiftly on 
our midnight, and he was free from pain. Angels wel- 
comed him as he passed through the shining portals into 
his final home. 

There was a little ray of hope, but as I looked down 
upon your faces last Sunday I could only think it had 
burned in your hearts as in mine, to the last spark, hidden 
in the white embers, and nothing less than a miracle could 
make it kindle up again into a flame that would live day by 
day. In the heart of the Church and of the Nation I do not 
think the blow, when it did come, was so severe as we had 
expected, for we were doing what we have done so often 
when the threads of life were breaking, and at last only 
one is left — we saw that while there was life there was 
hope: but in tlfis case, tliat life was death. Yet we 

(80) 



COMFORT IN SORROW. 81 

would not admit that the pain and suffering of our Pres- 
ident should end in dissolution, but still I think at last we 
came to that point that we could pray that he might be 
spared much suffering. He became so helpless, and there 
was onlj one way out of it, and that way prevailed. 

When the news came, troubling the night and casting a 
shadow over the day, I think there came over us a dumb 
thanksgiving that the struggle was over. We watch those 
we love while they live in the tabernacle, and we cling tO' 
the dust when they are gone, and while they are safe in the 
heart of the great Divine wonder; yet we turn to the face 
and kiss it, because, we say, it is all we have left. 

While there is some consolation in all this, it is not 
enough, and where shall we find enough? I confess it is as 
hard for me as for you to submit to the doom. We are not 
resigned, as he was not resigned. We may say, " God's 
will be done," but we cannot say that it is God's will that he 
should be taken from us in that infernal way, taking out 
the heart of the Nation and flying our banner at half-mast. 
It is a consolation to us not to be resigned, and when min- 
isters in the pulpit say: " God is in all this," let us cry out : 
"How do you know? Where is your authority for saying 
so?" Garfield himself did not wish to give up the world, 
for three reasons. He loved his life, he loved his country, 
and he loved his family. He loved his life in the West, his 
farm, the fruits of the earth, the milk and honey, the sweet- 
smelling odors found about an old farm house, that aroma 
that comes from the fields and from the woods. He loved 
Ohio better than " the fields beyond the swelling flood.'' 
His love for the Nation was blended with his love for life.. 
He was ready to work for the Nation when the bullet came- 
The love of country and of his life was crowned with his- 
love of those at home. After taking the oath of office he 
turned and kissed his mother. With some men that would 



82 COMFORT IN SORROW. 

have been only clap-trap, but in him it was taking the sac- 
rament. All were proud of him. How he battled against 
death for their sakes! The heart could not be broken as 
the body was, for he loved his life and his country, and 
above all his home, and for their sakes wished to live. Let 
evil work its worst, it could not slay the heart. 

Another spring of consolation comes from the tokens of 
sympathy and good will which came pouring in as he 
slowly sank into the grave. If all this had been revealed 
to him — that the old smoldering fires of resentment be- 
tween North and South, between England and America, 
were being quenched by the tears of sympathy for him and 
his family — would he not have welcomed his death? 
Another intimation of consolation arises from the fact that 
the Nation will now inquire after the root of this evil, and 
will search out the cause. The problem is no longer how 
shall we govern, but how shall we govern ourselves, and 
must our President be destroyed in doing this? 

There is consolence for his widow in that he is waiting 
and watching for her; for his children, in that in the future 
their father will be spoken of and placed among the names 
of Washington and Lincoln. Had he served out his term 
he would probably have made mistakes, for a weary time 
was waiting for him, and our ex-Presidents do not get 
much praise. Our hopes were that fairer days were in 
store for him ; but he has gone to fairer days above- 



OUR GOOD PRESIDENT. 



By Hon. Emery A. Stoer8. 



Dellrered In the First M. E. Church, Chicago, Sept. 26, 1881. 

Be sure, my friends, I am entirely conscious of the im- 
possibility of giving anything like adequate expression to 
that great sorrow which weighs upon your liearts, and upon 
the hearts of 50,000,000 of people to-night. I know that 
no language that I can possibly employ — I know, indeed, 
that uo language that falls short of inspiration in its char- 
acter — could fittingly tell the grief in which this great peo- 
ple is involved. J^ever since we have been a people — 
never, indeed, since this world has had a history — has there 
been a mourning so universal, a grief so deep, and so pro- 
foundly sincere; and how tame and weak, in the presence 
of such a sorrow, which weighs upon the hearts of all our 
people like lead, how tame and weak, I say, mere words 
seem, to voice and to give it expression ! I shall not voice 
your feelings to-night if I speak of the great dead merely as 
the dead President. I shall not voice your sorrows to-night 
if I speak of the martyred President as the noble husband, 
as the patriotic citizen, and as one filling high station, as 
the great statesman, as the devoted Christian. Not all 
these combined would fill the requisition which you would 
make upon him to whom you look for the expression of 

(83) 



Bi OUR GOOD PRESIDENT. 

your sorrow and your grief; but to all these must be added^ 
and every sentence must be deeply freighted with words 
of kindliest personal regard and expressions of tenderest 
personal friendship. 

I wish to supplement what your pastor has said. The 
Christian Churches do not merely honor the memory of 
President Garfield because he believed in the Bible, in 
which you believe and 1 believe, nor because he believed in 
that blessed Savior in whom you believe and I believe. It 
honors him, not merely that he was a believer, nor merely 
because he was a preacher of its doctrine, but it honors him 
above all things and beyond all things because in the low- 
liest station and in the highest station, in his daily walk 
and conversation, he illustrated the majestic truths of the 
Bible in which he believed, and the divine character of the 
blessed Savior whose example he followed. 

What is there that makes this mourning so universal ? 
The whole world is filled with it, and during these long, 
sad, dreadful, weary weeks through which we have passed, 
Gen. Garfield has come to be something more than our 
President. He has been enshrined in every home, and 
folded with an infinite loving tenderness into every heart. 
Tottering old age has left its corner, prattling childhood has 
abandoned its sports, to inquire, " How is the dear, good 
President to-day ?" And prayers, and hopes, and fears have 
filled all the atmosphere, and enveloped us like it, until at 
last the dreadful shock came; and the mighty sob, heard all 
over the continent, which is carried all around the globe, 
and in which every civilized people have joined, teaches us 
the blessed truth of the universal brotherhood and humanity 
of man. 

1 cannot speak alone to-night of Gen. Garfield as Presi- 
dent of the United States. I cannot speak of him merely 
as legislator. I cannot speak of him, if I fitly express our 



OUR GOOD PRESIDENT. 85 

feelings, as Senator, or as Congressman, or as statesman, or 
a.s politician, or as lawyer, or as citizen. I must speak of 
him in a connection dearer than all else to me. When I 
think of him there comes rushing back upon mv mind the 
memory of these past years; and let- me, my good friends, 
lay at your feet to-night, poor as it may be, the tribute of 
one who loved him tenderly and well. 

Gen. Garfield made the whole circuit of our noblest and 
best American life. He described it all. He suffered and 
he rejoiced. He strove and he succeeded. He tried and he 
failed like all the rest of us. Disappointments, triumphs — 
all these checkered his splendid life as we look back upon 
it as a completed whole; but the marvelous feature of that 
life seems to me to be after all, as we look upon it now, its 
wonderful and its absolutely perfect naturalness. 

He never reached a position that he did n't seem natur- 
ally to fill. He never achieved a single elevation that did 
not seem to be so thorouglily due to him. He never 
aspired — in its vain, mean sense — to place, but place came 
to him. No man in all this broad land is any poorer to-day 
for what James A. Garfield has been. No ambitious man 
in all this continent is any lower to-day because of the 
splendid heiglits which James A. Garfield reached. He 
■entertained no rancors toward a single human being. And 
when their hearts were probed, no single human being held 
a rancor against James A. Garfield. He never despised a 
living creature, and no living creature ever contemned him. 
He never harmed a human being, and, but for the one, no 
human being would ever have wittingly harmed James A. 
Garfield. He never selfishly stood in any human being's 
way, and when great bodies of men disagreed, hundreds 
and thousands of human beings got out of his way, and 
asked him to stand up higher. 

A little more than one year ago, in a great convention — 



86 OUB GOOD PRESIDENT. 

the grandest in Bome of its aspects the world has ever wit- 
nessed — we strove and strove, day after day, and day after 
day, each one pursuing his own choice and his own ambi- 
tion, but when the final end came, James A. Garfield had of- 
fended no man, James A. Garfield had wounded no one, and 
when the rushing tide came, every heart in that great body and 
this 2:reat Nation said Amen. In the contests of his own State 
the word " contest " ceased, and there was no contest. In 
the conflicts of the legislative forum the word "conflict'^ 
ceased to have a meaning, and there was no conflict. There 
was no bitterness in his heart, and there was never slander 
on his tongue. 

You may search the record of that pure and spotless life, 
and all through it you cannot find one unkind or one un- 
generous word uttered of a human being. My friends, 
challenge your memories. How bright and spotless will 
this simple record some of these days become, growipg 
from the ground up, suflfering with tlie people, of the peo- 
ple, sympathies quick for the people; of towering, and I 
might almost have said of a colossal, but a noble ambition. 
Assailed as but very few men have been assailed, yet his 
gentleness and his nobility disarmed them all, and the 
slanders of his enemies fell harmless and worthless at his 
feet. 

Pursue his career in his own State. How marvelous it 
seems to be to-day, and how natural. The school boy,, the 
teacher, the preacher, the soldier, as brave as he was mod- 
est and as modest as he was brave. His soul, liis life itself, 
as he periled it, he held in slight esteem when the honor of 
his Nation was involved. He knew not what fear was; but 
of all the pities that angels ever felt, none were softer and 
tenderer than that of James A. Garfield for a vanquished 
foe. And thus everybody came to love him; thus it is 
that everybody does love him; thus it is that through all 



OUR GOOD PRESIDENT. 87 

the homes, on every hillside, in every valley of this great 
land, there is no spot in which the memory of onr dear 
dead President is not enshrined as the most sacred and 
blessed among all their possessions. 

I have said how natural his life was — how easy was its 
flow. There were no leaps; there were no sudden advances. 
There was nothing theatric nor dramatic in his manner. It 
was one day of honest, earnest, patriotic well doing, follow- 
ing rii2,ht along after the other, in as noiseless and as beau- 
tiful a succession as, under the hands of the Almighty, the 
seasons make their courses as the ages roll on. This is our 
dead President. I have said to you that above a,nd beyond 
all the honor that I have for him in every department of 
life that he has filled, there is something that comes much 
nearer vay heart when I remember him as I have seen him. 
I know how simple the story of reminiscence must be, and 
I know that no eulogy is so fitly or so expressively spoken 
as the simple language of the simple days that great men 
have lived. During the last campaign I met the General, 
as we all called him, again and again. From the day that 
he received the nomination here at Chicago I never saw 
him look, and I never heard him express a doubt — not a 
whisper nor a suggestion of a doubt. I never heard him 
make an unkind criticism, although I did hear him again 
and again and repeatedly insist upon it that whatever the 
result might be no man in all this Union would be so thor- 
oughly satisfied with it as himself, provided every man be- 
neath the flag, high or low, rich or poor, black or white, 
should vote precisely what he thought, and that his vote 
should be counted as it was cast, 

I remember meeting him at Mentor. I think I shall 
never forget that. Reaching Cleveland just upon the eve 
of the election in Ohio, thoroughly fatigued, in some way 
or other Gen. Garfield had learned that I was almost dis- 



88 OUR GOOD PRESIDENT 

abled for further exertion, and there came into my room 
late that night, or rather about two o'clock in the morning, 
a dispatch from the General, saying that I must go down to 
Mentor in the morning, and so down to Mentor I went. 
We had heard the news from Maine. You know how bad 
it was — how discouraging it was. I met him at the station, 
and a cheerier, heartier, breezier man, it seemed to me, I 
never met in all my life. I went to his home with him, 
and we talked a little of politics, but very little. He had 
been reading Burke, and he took down a volume of Burke 
in his library, and called my attention to one or two of those 
splendid passages of his, in one of wliich — and I shall always 
remember it — occurred the wise expression: "He who 
accuses all mankind as being guilty of corruption is sure to 
convict but one." How wise, the General said, this was, 
and how well it would be could the captious fault-finders of 
the country thoroughly appreciate what that greatest and 
most substantial of all reformers said. And so we spent 
the day, talking over the campaign, looking through his 
books, going about his farm — talking less of politics, a great 
deal less, than of literature; and the time came when I 
must go, for I was to speak that night at Cleveland, and he 
got out that good, old, honest, country horse of his, as 
honest and plain as his owner, and drove me to the station. 
I remember his speaking of what his friends had done for 
iiim, the time they had spent, and the earnestness that they 
exhibited; and putting his arms around mj' shoulder, and 
calling me by my first name, he said: " I should be guilty 
of the ijreatest inocratitude — I know I never can do it — 
I must always remember what through all this country 
all these people have done." 

I saw our poor President again not until April, calling 
upon him, of course, imnjediately upon my arrival in 
Wasiiington, as it was my pleasure and my duty to do. 



OUR GOOD PRESIDENT. 89 

There was no opportunity whatever for conversation. He 
asked me to come to the White House that night, and of 
course I went; but there was no talk of politics. Senators 
were there, and other people who took his attention, and we 
simply talked of his pictures; but a<^ain, at his request, I 
went. His wife was in New York; his mother was there. 
He asked me to lunch, and I spent three hours with him 
that day, almost alone. Nobody^ indeed, came in, except 
Dr. Baxter, of whose name you liave heard so much. As 
we were about half through with our conversation, Dr, Bax- 
ter came in, and the President complained of difficulty with 
his head, pain in the back of his neck, and said that he was 
feverish. Dr. Baxter looked at him, and the President 
passed out. A little alarmed, I asked the Doctor what was 
the matter — if there was anything the matter with the spine, 
or anything of that sort. He said, " No, not the slightest; 
the poor man has been absolutely run over, beseiged unto 
death almost by seekers after office. All he wants is quiet 
and rest, and," said Dr. Baxter, "he is good for ilfty years." 
Some allusi( n has been made to it here, and almost the 
first thing that he said, I remember, as we got into the 
library, was his utter disgust for that part of his official 
duties — utter and complete. He looked it, and he felt it. 
He threw up his hands as he spoke in a sort of despair, and 
he said: "When can I ever sot rid of this? How insiar- 
nificant it all seems to me to be!" And then, sitting 
down, he said: " You know we are something alike in one 
respect — we like a stupendous debate on some question of 
doctrine, have it settled, shake hands and make up, and go 
along and settle another question. But these dreadful 
things, it seems to me, never will be settled." " Why," I 
said, " Mr. President, I am not as good a mannered man 
as you are, I am not as gentle a man as you are. You 
have asked me to talk to you quite plainly. Why don't 



90 OUR GOOD PRESIDENT. 

you disperse this mob?" He said: " How can it be done?" 
I said: "Divide it into seven parts. You have seven 
members of your Cabinet. Divide the mob up into seven 
parts, and if there is danger of one-seventh of the mob kill- 
ing any of your Cabinet officers, have them hire help, and 
have subdivisions all the way down until it is one at a time, 
if it is necessary for your relief." And so we went all over 
the field of politics. There were a great many troubles in 
the political sky at that time. I am not going to talk 
about them now, but I will tell you how gently and aflfec- 
tionately he spoke of everybody. 

There was not a man who was considered his enemy at 
that time that he did not speak of him in the gentlest and 
most affectionate terms. And I told him what a gentle- 
man whom he had supposed was at enmity with him, had 
said about him — some kind, pleasant word. I said to him: 
" Mr. President, I am not here, it is no part of my mission, 
to tell you disagreeable things, but I want to tell you what 
Senator so-and-so said to me no longer ago than yesterday 
— a good, kind, manly recognition of your qualities " — an*d 
he was as pleased and delighted at it as a boy; and he 
spoke of the same Senator words freighted with good feel- 
ing, and of those who were supposed to be in hostility to 
him, mentioning them by name. Not one single syllable 
dropped from his lips that I did not feel it a most exquisite 
pleasure to convey to the men concerning whom he hud 
spoken. 

And again and again I saw him. I can 't recall it all. 
It would take all night if I undertook to do it. I never 
can describe to you the exquisitely friendly manner that he 
had. Those who have ever known Gen. Garfield loved him 
as you would love a wife, as you would love a daughter. 
It was not a mere feeling of admiration. It was a feeling 
of deep, intense personal affection and regard. 



OUR GOOD FHKSIDENT. 91 

And the idea tliat he could do iu;_ythiii2^ that was wit- 
tingl}^ unjust seemed to uie to be utterly iiii]K)Ssil)le. Know- 
ing the man as I did, seeing him ms I have, I don't think, 
80 conspicuously free, and clear, and lioiu-st was his nature, 
that it would have been possible lor James A. Garfield to 
have done an unjust thing if he had tried. I recall 
the day when the children of Washington had a festival ; 
and I remember it now because it was one of the little 
events worth while recollecting, while I was in Washington. 
Some notes were brought in to him from the children, ask- 
ing that they might be allowed to roll their eggs on the 
White-House lawn. It is a great festival day in Washing- 
ton, and a custom peculiar, I think, to Washington alone. 
There were a great many notes, and they were answered, in 
the President's charming manner. And when we went in- 
to the library and got a view of the lawn — it slopes very 
gently, as those who have been there will remember — there 
seemed to be thousands of children engaged in that curious 
sport of rolling eggs down the lawn; and there was no child 
there half so delighted, half so charmed, with the sport as 
the dear, good President, who had opened the White-House 
grounds for the innocent play of the day. And there he was 
so burdened with all these tremendous cares. 

But let me say one thing more. It was perfectly clear 
to my mind, notwithstanding all this gentleness of de- 
meanor, notwithstanding all this tenderness of feeling for 
friend and for foe, that, when the President had finally 
made up his mind as to what was the fitting and the prop- 
er course for liira to pursue, he was going to adhere to it 
undeviatingly and unswervingly unto the end. When 1 
left him I had no mistake about it. I was in no sort of 
doubt. I knew that certain things would be done. I knew 
perfectly well that certain things would not be done. 
There was no an^i-er about it. It was a feeling infinitely 



92 OUR GOOD PRESIDENT. 

loftier and holier than anger. There was no passion what- 
soever in it. He made up his mind on tliose grave ques- 
tions without compassion. I think I can saj^ it trutlifnllj — 
he was almost absolutely impersonal. I had known him 
for years, but the iron strength of that solid resohition 
down in his soul, and encysted with that tenderness of 
spirit, never exhibited itself to me before as it did that day. 

And so the days went on, and he was President. I know 
we talked; he delighted as a boy over the wonderful recep- 
tion that his Administration had met in its opening days 
from the people, and he compared it to a great ship. He 
said: "How splendid it seemed. A crew faithful to the 
last, the winds all favoring, the skies all clear, triumphal 
music sounding upon its white and stainless decks, floats 
from the shore," and he said, " and it would be some honor, 
out in the depths of the ocean, smitten by storm and en- 
veloped by seas, to go down gurgling to the bottom; but," 
he says, " we cannot afford ^to be stranded in the bay. The 
ship must go out to sea." And I know that his wish 
was — it was the solid prayer of his heart every hour — that 
the great party of which he was the head — the elected and 
the selected head — and which he believed was the custodian 
for the years to come of the priceless treasure of free gov- 
ernment among men — might rule the country; but he 
loved the great Nation better than he loved the party. He 
was in no sense a factionist, and never could be. He loved 
the party because he believed its existence was indispensa- 
ble for the prosperity of the country, and, to secure it, lie 
would have sunk party faction — all other interests — deeper 
than ever plummet sounded, if it became necessary. 

And thus, my friends, it comes to pass again that the 
sorrow over the death of our good President comes from 
no section of the country. The grief is the same every- 
where; the skies are as black South as they are North; 



OUR GOOD PRESIDENT. 9S 

liomes are stricken there as they are here; for they of the 
South know that that noble heart never throbbed that it 
did not pulse with love for the whole Union. They knew 
that while he wanted no solid South, he wanted no solid 
Korth. He wanted a great, splendid. God-fearing, prosper- 
ous and happy Nation. They knew that he would make 
them prosperous if they would but let him. Hardly a week 
had flown by when every man in the South, no matter how 
deeply in his heart rankled the bitterness of the old time, 
knew that if he had no friend elsewhere, he had in the Pres- 
ident of the United States a friend upon whose wise coun- 
sels he could always rely. There was no laboring man in 
all this great land who toiled and sweated for daily subsis- 
tence, that did not know the President was his friend. 
There was no scholar struggling to a higher life and a 
clearer light, that did not know that Garfield was his 
friend, and sympathized with him. There was no 
statesman, looking for a broader and holier statesman- 
ship, that did not know that he had a friend in the Pres- 
ident of the United States. There was no oppressed and 
stricken man anywhere, whose rights the law failed to 
vindicate, that did not know that he could appeal to the 
great head of a great Nation, and that his prayer would be 
heard. There was not in all the South a cabin so low or a 
swamp so desolate, where the disfranchised citizen might 
be driven to escape from unrelenting foes, but that he 
knew that no matter how low his whisper, or how weak his 
cry, the quick ear of the President of the United States 
would be sure to catch them both. Thus the whole land 
loved him. Leaving the mighty cares which he had as- 
sumed, leaving the burden of this stupendous responsibility 
with his past career illumined all the way with light, this good 
husband, this kind father, this brave soldier, this patriotic 
citizen, this profound scholar, this great statesman, this 



94 OUR GOOD PRESIDENT. 

modest man, this true and faithful friend, turned his back 
upon his official place and power, and sought the college of 
his old days. 

There is mixed with this dreadful bereavement some- 
thing in the nature of a calamity, a feeling of utter shame 
and humiliation, that among all these 50,000,000 of people 
one miscreant heart could be found that would conceive, 
and one villain hand could be found that would execute, 
his death. Wounded unto death, they carried him back; 
and since these days thei-e is not a home in all this land 
that has not had the spirit and presence of the poor sufier- 
ing and wounded President within it. How we have 
watched through the days and through the nights, and 
and how the first thought, as dawn has broken upon us, 
was, " How has the President passed the night? " and the 
last prayer that we have uttered as we ha'^e sunk upon our 
couch was that the good President, the head of our great 
Nation, might rest sweetly and safely through the nightl 
There is nothing, my friends, in all the history of this world 
half so tearful or half so sad. The world has never before 
witnessed anything like it; and if the spirit of these fifty 
millions of people could have taken bodily form and shape 
there, they would have been seen, with the angels from 
Heaven, hovering over the bed of pain of our dear Presi- 
dent, from which, during all these hours of sore anguish 
and sorrow, there never came one complaint. 

How dear he is to us, for the tender words that upon 
that dying bed he has uttered! No reproach has escaped 
his lips. He has watched his own life fast ebbing away. 
Taken from the malarious atmosphere of the Capitol, borne 
by the sounding sea, with his eyes resting upon its billows, 
there the life of the good President " went out with the 
tide." In these last hours that came to him, his poor, 
wrecked, shattered, and benumbed body, be sure, felt no 



OUR GOOD PRESIDENT. 95 

pain. All agonies had ceased, all sufferings and sorrows 
bad closed, and before that pure heart and across it the past 
seemed to swim like a hurrying vision.* Back it carried 
him to the old school days— there was no reproach and no 
stain there; back to the early triumphs of his boyhood — 
there was no reproach there; back to his budding ambition 
— there was no shame nor dishonor there; back to the time 
when, feeling the honor of the land he loved so much as- 
sailed, he periled his life that the land he loved so much 
might know no dishonor— there was no discredit there; 
back to his long and splendid record as a legislator— no dis- 
honor there; back to the achievement of the loftiest ambi- 
tions of earth— there was neither spot, nor blemish, nor. 
any such thing there. The old memories of the old time 
filled his soul as if the sunshine coming from the throne of 
the eternal God had blazed all over it and the future lifted 

to our President — that future into which he soon went 

and there, be sure, like the telegraphic message that runs 
from the heart of every living creature to the throne and 
bosom of the Eternal God, he heard that welcome, " Well 
done, good and faithful servant; enter into the iov of thv 
Lord." ^ ^ ^ 

The pinions of unseen angels bore him there, and there, 
this night, robed in spotless white and surrounded by the 
great of all the ages, stands our President and our friend, 
raining benedictions upon us who are mourning for him. 

In the presence of such a sorrow, which is not unaccom- 
panied with a holy and an almost ecstatic joy, how weak is 
the talk of party, and how mean the cry of faction I Stand- 
ing by the open grave of this noble citizen and this pa- 
triot President, we may say: Hush strife and quarrel 
over this solemn scene. Enemies no longer, friends for- 
ever; and, linked hand in hand, take a solemn vow togeth- 
er that in that grave shall be buried all of bitterness and 



96 OUR GOOD PRESIDENT. 

all »f party hate. Over that pure life there shall come a 
penetrating perfume which sliall, you may be sure, float all 
around the i^^lobe, and intoxicate every other nation with 
the hope of liberty. 

Our good President is dead 1 The fires of his earthly 
tabernacle are all burned out, but burning with a clear, 
white light, we shall place the memory of that pure life 
like a beacon light, upon the headlands of this world's 
history in all the ages to come. 

My good friends, the very fact that throughout all our 
great land, in such lialls as this, and under such sacred in- 
fluences as these millions are this night gathered, would al- 
most reconcile us to our mighty bereavement. The past of 
James A. Garfield is secure. No domestic enemy nor 
foreign foe can ever hurt him more. His memory is ours. 
Ills fame is ours, and I would take it to my heart and 
treasure it as the most priceless jewel in all our earthly pos- 
sessions; Patriot, citizen. Christian gentleman. President,, 
friend! All that we can say is, our hearts sound his dirges^ 
God bleifl his name, and — farewelil 



GARFIELD'S LIFE AND DEATH. 



By Hon. R. Stockett Mathews. 



Delivered at the Memorial Services in Grace M. E. Church, Baltimore, Sept. 26, 1881. 

Over all the better portions of the vast earth the wisest 
and best of mankind are mourning as never before for the 
death of only one of the unnumbered millions of our race. 
Peasant and prince, kings and queens, hewers of wood and 
drawers of water, as well as the leaders of thought and dis- 
covery and progress, are turning their eyes towards the new 
continent and its young Kepublic with unaffected sorrow, 
almost as keen, well nigh as profound as our own. 

Never before has just such an existence passed through 
so many picturesque phases to an ending so pathetically 
tragic, so violent, so appalling. He was the son of a widow, 
born in a cabin; he fell from that station which the citizens 
of the United States are wont to deem the zenith of earthly 
ambition, while the plaintive monody of grief which flows 
from the stricken heart of the Nation is repeated and echoed 
again and again, until its reverberations traverse the cir- 
cumference of our planet, and return to mingle with the 
still fresh lamentations on our farthest shores. He possessed 
so many attractive qualities of personal character, united 
with so many and such varied capabilities for usefulness 
and distinction, that in the calamity of his death, the con- 
7 (97) 



98 GARFIELD'S LIFE AND DEATH. 

solations of memory, as we pouder on what he was, and has 
achieved, are impotent to soothe the anguish of a thousand 
ungratified hopes, when we try darkly to foreshadow what 
he might have been and done. Nature and culture, each 
at its best, were to be seen in his full development, joining 
the graciousness of an even, unselfish temperament to the 
tender strength of constant affections, the generous enthu- 
siasms of a large and liberal soul, with every grace, refine- 
ment and fascination of speech and manner which could be 
acquired by the pursuit of the noblest objects and familiar- 
ity with the most elevating books. "The two noblest 
things, which are sweetness and light," says Dean Swift; 
and of them, the man — the magistrate who has gone — liad 
more than ample share, mingling in such harmony that 
while one deplores the perishing of the statesman by the 
io;noble hand of an assassin, one renders the homage of a 
genuine grief, of a stunning sadness, for which tears are 
only the eloquence to the son, the husband, the father, whose 
virtues have ennobled humanity in our own eyes. 

It is an inspiration, as we contemplate his public course 
of a single score of years, not so much to emulate his in- 
tellectual attainments, or to take pattern after his eminent 
performances, but to become such as he was to those near- 
est to him, by the fireside, in the library — to fit ourselves 
to be trusted and respected as he was. Gentleness of dis- 
position, a heart luminous with joy and manly cheerful- 
ness, are potent to win and hold the attachments of all 
with whom we have to do. After all, to be able to forge 
the enduring bonds which are made fast and strong by the 
affinities of taste and sympathy and feeling, and to come 
back from toil or sacrifices or leadership into the privacy 
of the enchanting home, where love is master of all feasts 
and ceremonies, and genuine friends, however few, gather 
about us — this is, indeed, the richest compensation for 



GARFIELD'S LIFE AND DEATH. 



99 



-every endeavor; the charm and unchanging delight of the 
highest form of life. It is because he shone co'nspicuous 
for these social and domestic attributes; because he had 
such a simple, symmetrical human personality that his 
taking-off, " a deed without a name," appeals with such 
pitiful intensity to all our better emotions, and we are not 
guilty of weakness when we weep over him, either in soli- 
tude or with the multitude. 

Only a little while ago (here the speaker paused for a mo- 
ment, and resuming, said:) I had written thus far, and 
nothing more, when the realization of the tremendous loss 
to which our people and all posterity have so suddenly been 
subjected came over me, and with it, in mental procession 
alrits possible, saddest consequences, conjured by no wil- 
ling imagination, I was forced to lay aside my pen and 
wait until 1 should come into the presence of aii audience 
whose faith and prayers might drive the unwelcome visions 
from my thoughts. Only a little while ago— it seems as if 
we could reach the day by simply puttiiig out our hands 
towards the invisible calendar— Washington beheld such a 
pageant as it had never witnessed in all preceding time. 
^ Only a little while ago a young man, in the fullness of 
his physical bloom and beauty, who had not yet reached 
the ripeness and maturity of his transcendent intellect, 
stood in the presence of thousands of his admiring fellow 
citizens— the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court before 
him. Senators and Representatives of the Nation around 
him; just by his side the mother who had borne and raised 
him, and had carried him through privation and poverty; 
the wife whose gentle nature had tempered his own to a 
richer fineness, at his right hand. And when he had re- 
peated the great oath, that he would see that the Republic 
should sufifer no detriment, and it ])ad been carried up to be 
recorded for all eternity, his first act of thanksgivincr, of 



100 GARFIELD'S LIFE AND DEATH. 

recognition to the instruments which had been most power- 
ful in the moulding and the fasliioning of his character^ 
and the inspiration and the guidance of his career — his tirst 
act was to turn and kiss the woman whose lips had taught 
him the Lord's Prayer, and then the woman from whose 
lips he had drawn the first sweet baptism of tliat love 
which surpasses every rapture known on eartli. And then 
he began this brief administration of the few months in 
which, with almost startling suddenness, he revealed to our 
people new qualities which are possible to public men; 
moral courage that was absolutely inflexible, a superiority 
to malign counsels and untoward influences, that would not 
for a moment permit him to stoop to any concession be- 
neath the dignity of the Executive prerogative, although oy 
dalliance or temporizing he might have bought peace and 
quiet for himself. 

His secretary of the treasury, whose ability and long 
training are supplemented by the sound and accurate 
views of his superior, went on io finish that great act — of 
fundinof the national debt — which has made the students of 
finance in other States marvel beyond, expression at the 
lessons of statesmanship which are being taught in our 
own, and everywhere, from Maine to California, from Ore- 
gon to Florida, although hosts of those who were seeking 
the substantial rewards for political activity went crowd- 
ing to the capitol, this man of such extraordinary self-poise 
and self-reliance dismissed them by the thousand, remitted 
them to their dwellings, and was the first of our rulers for 
many successive administrations to announce as the guid- 
ing principle of his own, that no man should be disturbed 
in a subordinate ofiice, so long as he was capable, honest, 
and faithful, until the end of his term expired, and even 
then his claims, his merits should be considered as fully 
and as conscientiously as those of others who might be ap- 



GARFIELD'S LIFE AND DEATH. 101 

plicants for the same place. And if he had done nothing 
else in his brief life, a moiety of which had been devoted 
to public service, he would have left a memory to the 
American people imperishable, precious, and which no com- 
ino^ man can eclipse. 

Who was this hero? The bells of St. Paul's Cathedral of 
London speak with their resounding tongues, and the can- 
ons and prebendaries of the Cathedral, at Liverpool, are 
telling to our English-speaking kindred on the other side 
something of the sorrow which is being felt for our loss. 
In the viliages, in the universities, and in the capital of 
-Germany, the name which has been so frequently on our 
lips, is now pronounced as softly and as lovingly as in our 
own commonwealth. The English court is in mourning, 
the Spanish court is in mourning, while the recent repub- 
lic of France sends to us, by the mouths of its President, 
its leaders, its statesmen, its great men, assurances of their 
sympathy and their grief. Even in the mosques of Con- 
stantinople, the Moslems are forgetting to bend their knees 
to the setting sun, are forgetting to lift up their alleluias to 
the Prophet, and are uttering benisons for the dead ruler 
of the free people of the United States. Was there ever, 
since the world begun, such another event as this? No 
distance so great, no people so far removed, no civiliza- 
tion so alien, no religion so restricting, no partition, no ar- 
tificial barrier of any kind, suflScient to restrain the whole 
world from bending toward us, and bowing their heads in 
a sorrow that is unutteral)le, and craving for us a deliver- 
ance from its dreadful results, which can only come from 
tlie King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Oh, if the issues of 
life and death are ordained by a blind, fortuitous fate, how 
wretched are we to-day ! 

But, thank God, they are in the hands of a benignant 
and intelligent Providence, working out by grand laws His 



102 GARFIELD'S LIFE AND DEATH. 

primeval sclieme, throwing the whole majesty and grandeur 
of His sublime nature into the upward and onward progress- 
of our race. We know that unless the mission of our Re- 
public is ended, unless free institutions have fulfilled their 
predestined end, that the God who brought us into exist- 
ence will still continue by His own laws, by His own pur- 
poses, antedating prehistoric ages — that he will yet bring 
us up to the fullness and the roundness of a career glorious 
in its objects, and that the death of General Garfield will 
be the advent of a new epoch and the beginning of a new 
era of better, wiser, farther-reaching, more salutary states- 
manship. 

It is one of the peculiar features of free institutions that 
no boy, however humble his birth, however narrow and con- 
fining the circumstances by which he may be surrounded,, 
need fear that tliere is any insuperable necessity for his- 
remaining in obscurity. To be able to lift up one's eyes 
and see the shining portal of the Temple of Fame ; to be 
able to long for the strength to climb up to it, and the 
courage to enter it, constitute, after all, the best birthright; 
and the boy who has felt stirring within him the yearning 
to be something and to do something, has already half 
conquered the world. And if he act persistently and un- 
deviatingly up to that aspiration, turning neither to the 
rio-ht to listen to the siren song of vice, nor to the left to- 
satisfy mere sordid or mercenary impulses, but devote* 
himself to a life-work of nobility and utility, and keeping 
before him the great maxims and the great principles from 
whose motive power men gather pluck to reach high places 
and do grand things — before he has counted his half cen- 
tury he will be lifted to the top, and standing on the very 
loftiest heights of possibility and opportunity, turn and ask 
the world to look at him as the actual product of free insti- 
tutions, and to behold in his career what may be accom- 



' GARFIELD'S LIFE AND DEATH. 108 

plished by a freeman, with greater facility and assurance, 
than iu those countries in which rank and caste, high 
associations and importunate influences are requisite to a 
brilliant service in the halls of Parliament or Assembly. 

I would like to be able to tell you just how it was, and 
when it was, that he whose name I need not mention, 
whose image has melted into every soul, first came to real- 
ize that there was within himself something that the ma- 
jority do not feel throbbing for recognition— a percepti- 
bility and impression, ability, a capacity for the acquisition 
of knowledge, for the assimilation of truth, a perseverance 
of purpose, and willingness to deny himself, a readiness to 
suljmit to any privation that would only clothe and equip 
him with the mystic enginery of art and science, and of 
all the teachings of tbe great and good, until he could go 
out full and efficient and ready to take his place among 
men, and to assert his right to reputation, to become a 
" leader in the files of time." 

It is not at close proximity between the tow-path of the 
canal and the Executive mansion. Long as is the physical 
distance between Lake Erie and Washington, the moral and 
intellectual stadia which he had to pass over were longer 
still; and yet it took but twenty years for him to travel the 
whole distance— and reach a place for which he did not in- 
trigue or bargain, by any mean, illegitimate artifice or self- 
seeking. 

And when you remember from what low estate he started, 
and where he stood in modesty and docility only a few 
years ago, and what he became through the legitimate out- 
growth of his own systematic and methodical use of those 
functions and capacities, aided, of course, and fructified by 
what he gained Irom contact with the world, it is seen that, 
given a sound heart, an honest disposition, not much more 
than ordinary faculties— that is, the seemingly ordinary fac- 



104 GARFIELD'S LIFE AND DEATH. 

ulties of childhood — and then by keeping at it all the time; 
by burning the midnight himp; by the education of one- 
self to the perception of the invisible ends of life, to 
the intangible compensations, to things that cannot be 
transmuted into gold, or place, or i)Osition, for" the time 
being; by an apprenticesliip to high ideas; by working up 
to noble ideals little by little, hour by hour, year by year, 
and by never turning aside from tliem, he can at last reach 
the topmost lieight — be a man of mark; and, what is better 
still, lie can do beneficent things, can by reason of his posi- 
tion, speak grand and assuring words of statesmanship 
into the ear of the universe. 

Twenty years — think of it! Fatherless son of . a poor 
widow; laborer; canal-boy; chopping wood at twenty-five 
cents a cord; moM'ing down the green grass of the mead- 
ows for fifty cents an acre; carpenter — a rough carpenter — 
hewing out the green logs of the forest to make the hum- 
ble homes of the farmers in that far-ofi" wilderness; student 
in a district school; certified teacher of those who had been 
his playmates and coiii])rinions; scholar, neophyte in col- 
leo-e, graduate, piotessor of languages, president of a col- 
leo-e, running through the curriculum of humanities; Sena- 
tor in the State Senate; at twenty-nine lieutenant-colonel of 
a regiment of volunteers, one whole company of which was 
composed of students who had sat under his teaching, and 
were willing to go out to death with him, if need be; 
helmsman of his own boat through forty-eight hours of 
peril, when no experienced pilot could be found to guide it 
through the rapids of a swollen river, to bear the needed 
succor to iiis beleaguered camp; steering it with a hand as 
firm and an eye as clear as though he were sitting liere in 
tlie tranquillity of tliis sacred edifice; driving a leader more 
accomplished and perhaps more subtle than himself from 
his mountain fastnesses, and winning the first thrilling, 



GARFIELD'S LIFE AND DEATH. 105 

magnetic victory of the war for the Union; then detached 
to join General Rosecrans as Chief-of-Staff, and acting with 
him until the fateful battle of Chickamauga, and then, 
when the right wing of the army under the Commander-in- 
Chief was pierced and disheveled and dissipated, made his 
way alone back through fleeing ranks, through brake and 
briar and forest, for eight miles, until he reached General 
Thomas, who was still fighting with an unbroken front 
against outnumbering legions, and aiding to hurl back their 
impetuous assaults until with his own hands he assisted 
General Granger to give the parting fusilade of artillery, 
which rang out triumphantly and told that the awful com- 
bat had closed with night and victory, and that new lustre 
had been shed upon the loyal troops; then, at thirty-one, 
a major-general; then a representative for six successive' 
terms in the lower house of Congress; then a Senator-elect, 
and then President of the United States, in the forty-ninth 
year of his age. O beautiful youth! O grand and vigor- 
ous manhood! , 

Coming up from such an origin to take the coronation 
of a simple oath, and stand upon a level with kings and 
emperors by the suffrages of a free people — by the intelli- 
gent suffrages of a free people — for the vote which crowned 
him as chief ruler was the aggregate expression of the 
best conscience and intelligence of our Nation — never be- 
fore did any candidate enter the White House more palpa- 
bly and undeniably by the deliberate action and discrimi- 
nating intelligence of the best classes of American com- 
munities. Here is a climax which surpasses the fables of 
heroes, the legends of ancient mythology. Here is an as- 
cent which beggars description and impoverishes language. 

I challenge you who are most conversant with the biog- 
raphies of the great men of other ages and latitudes to 
find me a parallel with this almost marvelous rise to exal- 



106 GARFIELD- S LIFE AND DEATH. 

ted station. Is it to be wondered at, that now, when he' 
has suddenly disappeared from the theatre of the world's 
activities, that he has suddenly perished by the stroke of a 
reptile — whom it would be diy-nifying to call a ui. nster? Is 
it wonderful that now, when all his acquisitions, all his at- 
tainments, all his varied and affluent scholarship, all his 
grand and rare traits of character, all that he was and 
might have been, are thus suddenly blotted out? Is it 
wonderful that our tears are flowing like rivers of water? 
Is it wonderful that this loss causes such an outpouring of 
inexpressible pain, that when it fully strikes us with its 
overwhelming force, in vain, in vain, almost, we call upon 
our faith in God, and ask Him as some surcease of sorrow, 
to vouchsafe us some medicament for this poignant woe. 
And yet, and yet, my friends, this terrible death may, 
after all be, we all hope, we all trnst, we all would fain be- 
lieve, that it may prove a great blessing to us, and to the 
generations j'et to come. 

We need this blessing. We need a benediction from 
lieaven, for "all we like sheep have gone astray." We none 
of us are entirely guiltless in the sight of the great dis- 
penser of good and ill, of our brother's blood. 

If we had all been true, each and every one of us, high 
and low, to our duties of citizenship from our earliest youth 
to the present day; if we had been lending our energies to 
fashion virile public opinion and to mould robust public 
sentiment; if we had not lent ourselves to augment the 
rancor of parties and increased the hateful spirit of faction; 
if we had not perverted our privileges and stood silently by, 
time and again, acquiescent, passive, content to witness the 
elevation to puwer of men simply because they were glib-^ 
talkers; to see our whole elective system surrendered to the 
administration of ''managers " and of" bosses;" if we had not 
been so long too willing to see unworthy representatives in 



GARFIELD'S LIFE AND DEATH. 107 

Congress; if we had always demanded that only delegates 
with cultivation and pure hands, of scholarly tastes, men 
who would be capable of devising additional advantages in 
our government, who could not only construe pa^t laws, 
but introduce innovations by better statutes to remedy 
deliciencies in our jurisprudence, and make more homo- 
geneous and symmetrical our civil polities, and beautity, 
and adorn, and enlarge all our institutions until they should 
be to their ultimate perfections and possibilities of good, this 
evil which has befallen us would not, could not, have hap- 
pened; if we had not made idols of wood, and clay, and 
brass; if we had not been lured by mere orators who possess- 
ed something of dramatic force and the cunning chicane to 
please the ears of the multitude on the hustings; if we had 
not stood silently by and seen men working out their self- 
ish schemes, and building before our very eyes what is 
called the " machine," whose wheels, howsoever well oiled, 
grated upon our ears; if we had not been subservient to 
intolerant, imperious, dictatorial politicians, who made 
their combinations expressly for the purpose of putting 
some one in the chief seat of authority who would promote 
their personal greed and interest; if every one had spoken 
throusrh the Dress what ought to have been said of these 
things, or had called our fellow-citizens into town- meetings 
to reprobate pernicious methods for the profitable instruc- 
tions and admonition of such false leaders; if we had sought 
to exalt the standards of citizenship, had stood upon the 
outposts and had cried aloud against our own dereliction 
and degeneracy — this fell, foul deed would not have oc- 
curred. For James A. Garrield has surely fallen a victim 
to the hate and intolerance of a single faction, whose 
heated denunciations, falling upon the distempered brain 
of that miserable dastard in the jail at Washington, im- 
pelled him to slay the conspicuous opponent of such meth- 
ods and practices, as surely as Henri Quartre was a martyr 



108 GARFIELD'S LIFE AND DEATH. 

to tlie Protestant opposition to the Jesuits, and was slain 
bj the fanatical hand of Revaillac. 

Just as in olden times another impious hand fired the 
Temple of Ephesus, that he might through such a confla- 
gration inherit undying fame. Is it nothing that the great 
and good Ruler has given us such a country; has made ns 
the heirs to such a Constitution and laws; has bestowed 
upon us, through the instrumentality of our forefathers, 
such franchises and opportunities; such rights to happiness,' 
both individual and national ? Do we nut owe something 
in return to God for what He has made this land ? 

Are we to take all we see as matters of course in our 
daily life, such as are dew and sunshine and starlight, the 
earlv and the latter rain? Are we to look on and neg- 

« CD 

ligently behold so many mischiefs — to see great corporations 
rising to overshadow and corrupt legislation, traversing our 
land with continuous lines, and compelling the highways of 
commerce to become the mere agencies for speculation and 
the amassment of colossal fortunes, controlling our states- 
manship, and binding and loosing statutes to suit their 
exigencies, and raise no voice to arrest them? Do we owe 
notl ing of service and effort to Him and to the future to 
rightly use our liberties, and restrain their use within 
proper limits? Ought we not to cease to be indifferent tc 
everything but party names and discipline, and resist and 
overthrow the spiric of faction? — that, taught by the terrible 
lesson of this untimely death, shocked by the appalling 
shedding of this innocent blood, which seems to have been 
sprinkled upon every door-post of every house in the land, 
that we should become only citizens and patriots, straining 
our utmost to fulfill every loyal obligation and responsibility ? 
If these solemn needs are apprehended, these warning 
lessons are appropriated by us, then our great and good 
l*resideut will not have died in vain. If they be not learned, 



• GARFIFLD'S LIFE AND DEATH. 109 

it will be lonor indeed before heaven will vouchsafe such 
another to adorn private life and give brighter radiance to 
public station. 

I consider the life of James A. Garfield — viewed either 
from its open or its private standpoint — the most perfect 
which has been lived in our centuiy. I know of no man 
to-day in our laud who is his equal. Nor is this a new 
opinion of mine. It is no fresh estimate, beaten out by the 
hand of the destroyer ; it is no mere sentimentality which 
has come with the pangs of a crushing sorrow. On more 
than one occasion during the last canvass — I presume that, 
without immodesty, I may say it — I had the honor to address 
some of the largest audiences which gathered in this country. 
Twenty-seven times during last autumn I was permitted 
to stand before audiences, the least of which did not num- 
ber less than twenty-five hundred people, and the burden 
of all my song, the theme of my warmest advocacy, was the 
personal life and character of the noble gentleman who was 
the candidate of the Kepublican party. I studied then the 
campaign biographies, in his speeches, in his essays, in the 
maxims of wisdom which had fallen from his lips. 

I remember when I first saw him, eighteen years ago 
this November, on the platform of a meeting at Monument 
Square, and heard him presented to the people as the " brave 
General Garfield, fresh from the Army of the Tennessee." 
I was permitted to pass with him the whole of the evening 
on the Thursday in June before he went with Mrs. Garfield 
to Long Branch. I knew how absolutely frank and sin- 
cere he was — how straightforward and direct; what beau- 
tiful docility he united with firmness of will; what balance 
of judicial mind he had; that, although his perceptions 
were usually quick, his meditative faculties were equally as 
operative, and that the two sets worked in perfect poises; 
how that what he saw or thought passed into the chamber 



110 GARFIELD'S LIFE AND DEATH 

of jndi^ment, and was chrystalized there before it came forth 
either in word or act; liow that he was full of feeling and 
tlioniirht — an honest man, a Christian statesman, a perfect- 
ly upright politician. Some of you may smile when I give 
Buch a prefix to such absurd words — Christian politician, 
Christian statesman. Are they numerous? And yet, here 
was a man who never doubted the divine orio:in of the 
Christian system, the Atonement, the vicarious sacrifice of 
the founder, the inspiration of the Scriptures, the existence 
of a hereafter, of a future life, to which he looked forward 
always as to the time and place for the future development 
of his own character. 

lie turned aside from skepticism, from doubts and sub- 
tleties, from materialism, from positiveism, pantheism — be- 
lieving with all the tenacity, all the persistency of his cul- 
tivated intellect, in one God, omnipotent and omnipresent, 
holding the ocean in the hollow of His hand and giving to 
the stars their courses. When science revealed to him dis- 
tant spaces and new planets, and the myriad, multiform, 
sentient lite of earth, and the stratifications which were be- 
ing builded until the globe became a habitat of human 
beings, he only deepened in his reverence for the works of 
God, and enlarged his comprehension of the laws of crea- 
tion. 

Mr. Mathews then drew a graphic picture of the 
student life of the President, his ardent thirst for knowl- 
edge, and familiarity with great books, from Homer and 
Aristotle to Siiakspeare, Bacon, Burke and Tennyson. He 
quoted the opinions of Lord Macaulay as to the value of 
learning even in the subordinates of a civil service, and 
said that he had been better accomplished for his grand 
work than any of his predecessors. 

He then made a fervent appeal to his audience to put 
themselves into full correspondence with the spirit of the 



GARFIELD'S LIFE AND DEATH. Ill 

occasion, saying that there is darkness upon the land in 
spite of its sunshine. No man can tell what the next day 
may brino^ forth. The dropped curtain has upon it no clear 
landscape of hope. Let us, with thanksgiving for the man- 
ifold blessings of Heaven — with humiliation for our own 
shortcomings — trust that the day of our destiny is not over, 
the star of our fate not declined. I am no pessimist, no 
alarmist. We own ourselves citizens of a splendid nation; 
we boast that our children shall be heirs of a grand future; 
we say that ours is the only real Republic that has ever ex- 
isted — that those of Greece and Rome, and Italy in the 
Middle Ages, were only phantoms when compared with our 
greater and freer institutions. Let us see that we do our 
best to preserve and perpetuate, to adorn and magnify the 
costly fabric of our liberties. I have already detained you 
beyond the proprieties of this occasion. It remains for me 
to say only a few words. I have spoken of the man — the 
public servant — in his life and work. 

I come now to speak of the dying hero. I think that 
when every one comes to lie down to die, the example 
which he has left of fortitude will give us greater calm- 
ness with which to look the grim conqueror of all men in 
the face. Oh ! what a glorious chamber that was at Wash- 
ington or Elberon. No complaining, but resignation, 
manifested hour by hour, as the feeble strength and flicker- 
ing were ebbing away so slowly, so slowly. You remem- 
ber he asked the physicians when first wounded, " What 
are the chances?" And when Dr. Bliss replied, " But one 
in a thousand," the President responded, " We'll take that 
chance." The bitterness of death had passed to him when 
he parted from his wife to go into the war. It is a singu- 
lar tiling that during all the weary agony of his prolonged 
suffering, so little appreciated, because even the surgeons 
were ignorant of the cruel work done by the bullet, and 
that it was imbedded in a net- work of nerves, he never 



112 GARFIELD'S LIFE AND DEATH, 

once mentioned the name of his assassin, but once, and 
then only in a single sentence, to express his utter inabili- 
ty to comprehend the provocation for his act. AYe think 
of his unfailing courtesy, of his unfaltering fortitude, of his 
patient heroism — of the smile which lighted his face when 
Mrs. Garfield came to him as heroic as he from her rapid 
journey from Long Branch ; of his great afiection for her — 
the last letter to his mother when he was almost on the 
brink of the beyond — all these things touch us too deeply 
for anything but tears. He has become now the subject 
for the historian. If of foreign nations, we know what the 
verdict of history would be, for foreigners have already 
published their admiration of the symmetry of his char- 
acter, the lovely completeness of his private life. 

And now he is sleeping beneath the fresh mold of the 
grave in Lakeview Oemetry. "We have not seen the slow 
pace of the mournful procession; we have not heard the soft 
dirge of its march nor the requiem which has spoken peace 
to his shimbers. "We have not stood by the open sepulchre' 
but I am not sure that many of you liave not been sitting 
here, but in spirit listening only to sobs of breaking hearts 
around that memorable tomb. I seem myself to have been 
listening for the far-off articulation of that tender sorrow 
which friends and kindred, and children, '.vjfe and mother, 
will pour out above him. Dead ! All i greatness has 
perished. His heart beats neither for \u6 love nor his 
country. "Well may we say, " What shadows we are! what 
shadows we pursue! Vanity of vanities; all is vanity !'y 
Nay; not so. Such a life is never finished. He has added 
to the store of human knowledge. There is another lus- 
trous name emblazoned upon the rolls of fame; another grand 
figure for monumental marble and bronze; another splendid 
example for the young to follow, for the older to emulate ; 



GARFIELD'S LIFE AND DEATH. 11$ 

another great type of courage, of heroic endeavor and unen- 
vied success. Dead, but living 1 Living forevermore to 
speak down the corridors of time and call the lowly to honor>^ 
the bra^e to victory, the pure in heart to the kingdom of 
this present life, and of th<» world to come. 
8 



IN MEMORIAM. 



By Chas. F. Buck, Esq. 



Orator of the day at the Memorial Service In New Orleans, La., Sept. 26, 1881. 

It was one of nature's holidays. Calm and peaceful, re- 
splendantly brilliant, rose the bright "monarch of day" on 
the 2nd of July, 1881, over a happy and peaceful country. 
There had been no "ominous tidings of mishap," no 
" lamentings heard in the air," nor prophesying with 
accents terribh 



' Of dire combustion and conflised events." 



Fifty millions of people went, rejoicing, to pnrsne their 
usual avocations. They compose the greatest nation known 
in the history of human development. They are a nation 
of rulers — of sovereign equals, governed only by the laws 
of their own making. From time to time they choose a 
worthy citizen of their number who must put the laws in 
operation and see them executed. He represents the exec- 
utive sovereignty of the people. The man exalted to that 
station is honored above all mortals. The sceptre swayed 
bv the chance of inheritance is a tinseled nothing, not 
worth the birth-right of the humblest American citizen; 
then how much greater than all is he, the chosen sovereign 
of a nation of sovereigns. 

(114) 



I 



IN MEMORIAM. 115 

In the course of tlie appointed time such an one had 
just been singled out. There had been a fierce contest of 
opposition claimants, embittered by memories of the past; 
differences of the present, fears and niisgivinors for the fu- 
ture. But the will of the majority is the choice of all, and 
the successful candidate of a party becomes president of 
the people. James Abram Garfield, who now lies still in 
death, of the State of Ohio, candidate of the Republican 
party, received a majority of all the votes cast for President 
of the United States in the electoral college, and on the 
4th of March, 1881, was installed in the duties of his high 
oflice. The grim asperities of conflict had already smoothed 
their " wrinkled front." The new President himself had 
said: "If there ever was a people on the earth who had rea- 
son to be tired and weary, to the bone and heart, of politi- 
cal contention, the bitterness of party malice, and all the 
evils that can be suffered from partisanship, it is the afflicted 
American people." And the people were tired of it all, 
" to the bone and heart." 

The repose and quiet which followed the conquest, was 
the verdict of universal acquiescence. The chasm which 
divided the people was rapidly closing, making a smooth 
and common level for all to stand on. The soul of the 
chief-elect was full of the grandeur of this consummation. 
In his inaugural address he predicts that it will surely 
come. He appeals to the people with eloquence of tender 
entreaty. "Why should it not be now?" Let us recall 
what he says in this connection right here: "As country- 
men we do not now difier in our judgment concerning the 
controversies of past generations, and fifty years hence our 
children will not be divided in their opinions concerning 
our controversies. They will surely bless their fathers and 
their fathers' God that the Union was preserved, thai 
slavery was overthrown, and that both races were made 



116 IN MEMORIAM. 

equal before the law. We may hasten or we may retard, 
but we cannot prevent, final reconciliation. It is not pos- 
sible for us now to make a truce with time by anticipating 
and accepting its inevitable verdict. Enterprises of high- 
est importance to our moral and material well-being invite 
us, and offer ample scope for the employment of our best 
powers. Let our people, leaving behind them the battle- 
fields of dead issues, move forward, and, in the strengtli of 
liberty and restored union, win the grander victories of 
peace." Noble words; inspiration of the spirit of peace 
which hovers over the raoands where molder the bones of 
slain freemen. They went straight to the hearts of the peo- 
ple, because the people were ready for the day " of honora- 
ble reconciliation and peace," and the people throughout 
the land were happy and contented. 

They accepted the inauguration of Mr. Garfield as the 
completion of the civil revolution which followed upon the 
revolution of arms, and as the commencement of the era 
of perfect pacification. The President had proclaimed 
himself the apostle of this new Union, and all honored him 
for it and all trusted him; no, not all: History is tragedy; 
the characters, peoples, the motive power of the action, the 
spirits of good and evil, out of the conflict of which the 
fate of the actors evolves itself. An infatuation, born of 
the spirits of evil, which destroy and build not up, pos- 
. sesses the brain and faculties of a being of flesh and blood 
like ourselves, with feet to walk upon, erect, in the image 
of God — it sounds like blasphemy to say so — and arms 
and hands to do his wicked will — an infatuation to kill the 
President of the United States in times of perfect peace. 
He follows the doomed man like his destiny. He is dia- 
bolical, cold and relentless as fate. He sees his victim in 
the peace of his home where he is happy, making others 
happy; the sight of it for the moment turns him from 
his purpose. Sophistry of the flend! He is toying with 



7JV MEMORIAM. 117 

his pre3^ He relaxes not his terrible desii2;n. He only de- 
fers its execution. He sees the doomed man at his devo- 
tions in the house of God, and tliinUs he will do it tliere. 
But no, the hour had not j^et come. I'he dark shadow of 
destiny lurked, but struck not; but it never wavered in its 
purpose. The day came. It was decreed in heaven. 

The mortal part of James A. Gai-field was doomed to 
martyrdom and death. Two acts in the trilogy of the na- 
tion's trials had been concluded. The first — the conflict of 
.blood — ended with the deatli of Abraham Lincoln; the sec- 
ond — the strife of the passions — closed on the inauguration 
of Garfield; the third — theexpiation — begins with the sacri- 
fice of the Apostle of Peace, whose soul had become the in- 
carnation of the spirit of a betterfuture. " The stars had 
said it." Twice the angels of mercy pa sied the murderous 
hand; twice the conscious power of innocent and noble man- 
hood awed the coward from his aim. But it was not to be. 
A third time the spirits of evil move their wicked instru- 
ment to his dark design. The victim is wholly unconscious 
of the shadow at his side. His soul is elated with the joy 
of a supreme happiness. He has rendered well the first 
duties of his high call. The seeds of a harvest of peace and 
plenty had been sown. Garfield felt himself the Chief 
Magistrate of a happy and united people. 

He surveys his work and sees that it is good, and rejoices 
in it. He seeks respite from his labors; t'le father and the 
husband claim their natural due. He is on his way from 
the Halls of Power to enjoy his peace in the shrine of do- 
mestic love. At the fatal railway station, the cares of Gov- 
ernment behind him, the consciousness of duty well done 
with him, the prospect of naught but what is good and 
beautiful to him, the President of the United States had 
reached the height of human happiness and glory. 

" Alas ! the gods oft gnidg - what they liave given 
And ne'er unmixed vvitli grief has heaven 
It's joys on mortals shed," 



118 IN MEMORIAM. 

In the moment of this supreme consummation of the 
toils of a life, the dark shadow of evil at his side became 
the avcno;ing Nemesis of Fate, jealous of the happiness of 
men. The " unexpected" happened. Out of the clear 
sky of that bright and peaceful 2d of July, fell the thunder- 
bolt. The assassin-instrument fulfilled his awful mission. 

By noon on that ever memorable day the liglitning mes- 
senger had spread the sad news over the civilized world. 
The PrOiident of the United States has been shot ! Con- 
eternation filled the hearts of men and pallor blanched their 
cheeks. Was it treason, was it conspiracy, was it domestia 
broil ? Thank God, no ! It was the act of a madman j 
and by its fruits we shall know it is the decree of a Provi- 
dence, v/orking out after its own merciful manner the destiny 
of nations. " The blood of the martyr is the seed of the 
Church." "On the drenched graves of the battle-fielda 
bloom the attributes of a great and free people." 

Death was not instantaneous; the victim lingered between 
life and death for 78 long and painful days. Let us draw a 
veil over that weary struggle. It almost made one " waver 
in his faith" that the prayers of a nation availed naught; 
that fortitude, and patience, and resignation availed naught; 
that love and devotion availed naught. Agony and sxiffer- 
inc were not even spared; yea, they seemed to overfill the 
fullest measure of woe tliat human flesh can bear. It 
shrunk and wasted from day to day, but the spirit kept its- 
throne iu all the grandeur of divine descent. " I cannot 
understand how I am so weak when I look so well." It 
continued to waste and waste away under the very hands 
of ministering love, till nothing remained but the coarse 
outer frame of " mortal coil " through which flowed no- 
lono-er blood enough to warm the heart within; then the 
spirit took its flight, and the sacrifice was complete. The 
President was dead — dead bv the assassin's bullet — and the 



IN MEMORIAM. H^ 

Nation is in tears! Sorrow for the dead is hallowed by 
sympathy with the living; a loving husband, a noble father,, 
a faithful son, lies in death, lost to his dear ones, because he 
was President of the United States! That is the crime for 
which he died. Justice of Destiny, pardon us in our 
ignorance if we understand not the fitness of thy decree^ 
and the people feel that he died for them, and so they 
mourn and honor him and make amends to his bereft. 

James Abram Garfield was an extraordinary man of ex- 
traordinary career, and— fate, though cruel, remained true 
to him to the last— extraordinary in his death. Heroes 
have lived and died in all ages; great and good men have 
gone before, whose work still abides and bears fruit; ex- 
celling genius and intellect have reared pre-eminent' and 
lasting monuments ere this, but the annals of recorded time 
furnish no parallel so comprehensive, so rounded and com^ 
plete, as the life and death of President Garfield. Poets 
will delight to exalt, and statesmen, historians and philos- 
ophers pause to moralize on this singular life long after the 
generation which has witnessed his death shall have passed 
away. Garfield's life is the epitome of the struggle of 
mankind. 

He came into the world with nothing but the privileo-e& 
and attributes which he brought from his Creator. He- 
left it at the topmost round of human glory— a character 
moulded to perfection in the school of adversity, through, 
which he attained his eminence. 

It becomes a part of my task, even at the risk of wearying- 
you, not, I hope, by the subject, but I fear by my inability 
to do it justice, to review as briefly as I can the main in^ 
cidenta in the life and services of the honored dead to whose 
mortal remains we are now offering the last sad tribute of 
recognition and respect. 

James Abram Garfield was born on the 19th day of Decern- 



120 IN MEMORIAM. 

ber, 1831, in the township of Orange,Cnyahoga county, north- 
eastern Ohio. His father, Abrani Garlield, bought eig'ity 
acres of uncleared land in the midst of a forest, miles away 
from the habitations of men. On this he erected a log hut, 
about twenty by thirty feet, of the most primitive sim- 
plicity. Such was the birthplace of the President whoso 
death the people mourn to-day, whose memory is honored 
by the world. The family consisted of six — the parents and 
four children. When James was two years old, the father 
died, and left the mother with four orphaned children, the 
oldest of whom, Thomas, was about nine years old. The 
80 acres of land had not been paid for in full, and the 
mother sold 50 to get oat of debt. This was the beginning. 
It is as memorable for the sacrifice which turned it onward 
and upward as for its lowliness. The widow knew privation 
and poverty were her lot and the lot of her elder children. 
Eliza Ballon, still living, mother of Garfield, is of the fiimily 
of a heroic and gifted Huguenot, who fled from France after 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Her love and her 
iiopes centered on her youngest son. He, at least, shall be 
a man among citizen-men. He must be lifted out of the 
stagnation of isolated life to a sphere of action where prizes 
are gained and victories achieved. The elder brother irave 
himself up'to this sweet fancy and offered himself, that James 
might go forward. This was the sacrifice. Cheerfully he 
followed his humble lot; he was content to be a tailor, a 
hewer of wood and a drawer of water, if onl}'' his young 
brother could be fitted for a better destiny. 

That is the most instructive period of the deceased's ca- 
reer, which commenced when his brother led him by tiie 
hand to the country school, and ended when at the age of 
twenty-five years he graduated at Williams College, He 
worked his way through poverty and privation, but the end 
was ever clear to his mind. The struggles of to-day gave 



IN MEMORIAM. 12i 

rnomentnm to the effort of to-morrow; « character is a per- 
fectlj educated will," some one has said. Up to the a-e 
ot 16 or 17 years, Garfield showed nothing extraordinary Tn 
his being, except that independence and individuality of 
will, without which no one ever became great. Rit his 
application had been desultory and his pursuits un- 
steady. 

A strange fancy possessed him to adopt a seafaring life 
It must have been the outgrowth of that indefinite yearn- 
ing winch compels great souls in that transition struo-^le 
from the vagaries of youth to the concentration of their 
faculties on some settled purpose. It ended by him be 
coming a canal-boat driver, of which he was cui-ed by an 
accident which so nearly cost him his life that his escape 
eeemed a miracle to him. He returned to his mother, 
whom he found in the silence of the niglit offering pravers 
by the fire-light for her wandering son. From that mo- 
ment his character was formed, his "will was perfectly ed- 
ucated. He knew exactly what he wanted, and to resolve 
was to succeed. He set his heart on ^rraduating in an 
Eastern college. He believed in thorough education as a 
great civihzer of nations and the maker of men He had 
heard and read that Wellington said the battle of Waterloo 
was planned in the shades of Eaton College. The reasons he 
gave for selecting an Eastern college are characteristic 
Having always lived in the West, I think it will make me 
more liberal both in my religious and general views and 
sentiments to go into a new circle where I shall be under 
new influences." How he paid his way is known to all 
partly by aid of kind friends, partly by the earnings of his 
labor at odd hours, and serving as janitor at the College 

In 1856, after his graduation, he became teacher of Latin 
and Greek at Hiram Institute. He soon became principal 
and while so occupied in 1858, married the noble woman 



122 IN ME MORI AM. 

who is tx)-day the Nation's widow ; all her greatness and 
glory and happiness shrunk into the cold and withered 
form of a murdered husband. At Hiram Institute, Gar- 
field laid the foundation for that oratory, which gave hira 
such readiness and command on all occasions. He lectured 
to the school extemporaneously, several times every week on 
history, literary or scientific subjects. Some time before 
this, he had written to a brother teacher, " Tell me, Burke, 
do you not feel a spirit stirring within you that longs to 
know, to do and to dare; to hold converse with the great 
world of thought, and hold before you some high and noble 
object to which the vigor of your mind and the strength 
of your arm may be given 1 Do you not have longings 
such as these which you breathe to no one, and which you 
feel must be heeded or you will pass through life unsatis- 
fied and regretful? I am sure you have these, and they 
will forever cling around your heart, until you obey their 
mandate. .They are the voices of that nature which God 
has given you, and which, when obeyed, will bless you and 
your fellow-men." 

A man so gifted by nature and so perfected by study 
and reflection could not content himself with the profes- 
sor's chair. The oj>ening ambition of his life was accom- 
plished; he was armed and equipped for the real struggle 
in which honor and distinction are won. This second 
period of his life he entered with an even chance, and soon 
distanced competition. 

In 1859 he was elected a member of the State Senate ot 
Ohio. When Lincoln's call for seventy -five thousand men 
was read, in the midst of clamor and confasion, he jumped 
to his feet and moved that twenty thousand troops and three 
millions of dollars be voted as the quota of Ohio. I refer 
to this to show a characteristic of his mind, the faculty 
to see and do the right thing at the right time, which is 



IN MEMORIAM. 123 

genius. He rose with every occasion, and mastered the sit- 
uation at ever/ turn. While prepariiu^ for his deimrture 
with his regiment he writes: " I have had a curious inter- 
est in watching the process, in my own mind, by which the 
fabric of my life is being demolished and reconstructed, to 
meet the new condition of affairs." 

His military career was brief but brilliaTit. He rose 
rapidly to the rank of Major-General. lie had but few 
opportunities of action, but whatever he did was done with 
the clearness of precision and self-reliance of the firm 
leader. There was inspiration in everything he touched. 
The mind's perception was clear and penetrating; the action 
that followed overwhelming and complete. 

In 1863, while on duty with the armies of the North, he 
was elected to Congress by the Nineteenth District of 
Ohio. He did not leave the army until satisfied by the 
assurances of superior officers and the request of President 
Lincoln that he could do so with honor. 

On the 4th of December, 1863, he took his seat in the 
House of Representatives, 32 years old, the youngest mem- 
ber of the House — as he had been the youngest general in 
the army, and the youngest member of the Ohio Legislature 
— after struggling twenty-five years of his life to gain an 
even start with his fellow-men. 

The history of his congressional life is beyond the scope 
of this occasion. Nor will I attempt to describe his ora- 
tory. In this generation, when perhaps hundreds of thou- 
sands are living who have felt the power of his mind as it 
flowed a living current from his own lips, it would be 
folly on my part to repeat at second-hand the traditions of 
eye-witnesses. This I know, that clearness and precision 
and firmness never forsook him; that he acquired a confi- 
dence in his own judgment, which he alM-ays followed, not 
because he could not believe himself to be wrono-, but be- 



124 IN MEMORIAM. 

cause he made it a canon of his life's faith to please his 
own conscience above all other things or persons. 

Dni-ing all this time in Congress he was an advocate and 
leader to that policy of reconstruction of the Republican 
party, the scope and effect of which are well known. In 
the heat of discussion and the passion of reports, sharp and 
stinging words might sometimes cross his lips; but at the 
bottom of all he said or did was a stratum of justice and 
the image of liberty and equal rights. Uncompromising 
in liis fealty to republican ideas, he never lost an opportu- 
nity to draw his hearers to the beauty of peace and the 
promise of reconciliation. 

In 1875, during a bitter discussion on a motion to restore 
Jefferson Davis to the right of citizenship, he said: 

"Mr. Speaker, I close as I began. Toward those men 
wlio gallantly fought us on the field, I cherish the kindest 
feelings. I feel a sincere reverence for the soldierly quali- 
ties they displayed on many a well-fought battle-field. I 
hope the day will come when their swords and ours will be 
crossed over many a doorway of our children, who will 
remember the glory of their ancestors with pride. The 
high qualities displayed in that conflict now belong to the 
whole Nation. 

" Let them be consecrated to the Union, and its future 
peace and glory. I shall hail that consecration as a pledge 
and symbol of our perpetuity." 

PAYING BONDS IN GREENBACKS. 

Let one utterance suffice to illustrate the strength of his 
convictions on this subject. He had been absent in Europe. 
The Republican party of Ohio had been swept into " the 
greenback current," and had adopted a platform looking to 
tlie payment of bonds in greenbacks. He was told that 
there was no stemming the torrent. An indiscreet word 



IN MEMORIAM. 125 

might cost him the nomination. He returned to Ohio, 
attended a reception and was called upon to make a speech 
— and he said: 

"Much as lvalue your opinions, I here denounce this 
theory that has worked its way into this State as dishonest, 
unwise and unpatriotic; and if I were offered a nomination 
and election for my natural life, from this district, on tliis 
platform, I should spurn it. If you should ever raise the 
question of re-nominating me, let it be understood." 
^ One word more on Garfield's relations to the great ques- 
tions of legislation which engaged the attention of Congress. 
I would not be just to the memory of the dead if I did not 
recall his position on the great financial problems. From 
the moment he entered Congress he foresaw the diffi- 
culties which were likely to come and he sethimself to work 
to master the subject in advance. He reduced it to the 
simplicity of maxims: Pay your honest debts with honest 
money; paper money you may issue, but let your paper dol- 
lar be a certificate of actual value, convertible at the pleasure 
of the holder into a fixed amount of 'royal coin.' 'Fiat* 
paper money is a delusion and a snare; the more you issue 
the more you need, because the more there is of it tlie more 
worthless it gets. You can have my services only on the 
ground of the honest payment of this debt and these bonds, 
in coin, according to the letter and spirit of the contract." ' 
In person the deceased is described as a model of perfect 
manhood. Of commanding stature and energ tic mien, 
strong in repose, vehement in action ; his moral nature was 
lofty as his intellect was grand. The grasp of his hand 
was strong and his heart was warm. His domestic life was 
pure and holy. He revered his mother with the devotion 
of a faith; he loved her, not as a child loves the parents, but 
the parents the child, for in the course of years he had be- 
come the stronger and she was his care as lie had been hers. 



126 IN MEMORIAM. 

His household was simplicHj and faith and confidence and 
love. With small as with great things he carries the 
magnetism of genius and the presence of inspiration. It 
is his which has electrified the people of his country. This 
universal outpouring of sympathy and mourning, this grief 
80 deep, so real, tliat men feel it but speak it not; this 
spontaneous consecration in fifty million human hearts to a 
fame, and a love, and a glory hallowed and undying; ia 
it a folse sentiment, a fancy of the moment ? No, it is real, 
as it will be everlasting. It comes not from us alone, it 
springs from our hearts in response to the divinity that 
rediates from the manifestations of a soul grand in all the 
attributes which make man Godlike. 

Ilis strange, eventful life, with its struggles, its purities, 
its devotion, its success and its sacrifice, is a national pos- 
Bcssion and a national heritage. May its teachings be also 
a national blessing. 

It remains for us to make it so. The President died be- 
cause his mission was Peace. Let the object of the assassin 
he thwarted. My the memory of your sacred dead, conse- 
crate yourselves to that Peace which he promised — the new 
Union which he foresaw — the new destiny of a re-united 
people. And when it is attained let the Nation rear a 
monument to Harmony and Concord, and on it inscribe in 
letters of everlasting gold, " Sprung from the blood of the 
predestined James Abram Garfield, Martyr President." 
Accursed be the generation that forgets the sacrifice; this 
is the sentence pronounced by the Justice of his country 
on his assassination. 



"THE MAN OF HIS TIME. 



Bt Phillips Bbooeb, D.D. 



Dellrered In Trinity Church, Boston, Sept 26, 188L 

The events, thoughts and recollections of the time are 
those which we have never before brought into our church; 
they have given a color and tone to our service that is 
wholly unique. In every household that is closely united 
there will always be some days that stand apart in its his- 
tory; there will be days that never came before, and that 
will never come again. If the Nation be a household, as 
it is, so there will be days for it also that will stand abso- 
lutely apart. 

It is impossible now that one should not feel the senti- 
ments, the thouglits, the mingling of intense sadness with 
the consciousness of nobleness that has filled these last 
days. All that we can do to-day is to come together to talk 
with one another of the common grief, to think together of 
the man whom God has called to Himself, and to look for- 
ward to the mercy that He has for all. 

The President of the United States is dead at the hand 
of an assassin — not by one sudden blow, but after long 
weeks of watching and of painful alternations of hope and 
despair. He is gone; his death is something new in the 
history of America; it stands by itself; let us think of it 

(127) 



128 THE MAN OF HIS TIME. 

as loving our President who is gone and God who has thu& 
manifested Himself to him and to us. He has been and 
always will be ours; he is ours in a peculiar sense; we 
have for him a special feeling of familiarity. His life cov- 
ered the last half century, and as we look back over those 
fifty years, I think we all feel that there have been no fifty 
years in the history of our country or of the world in 
which it has been such a privilege to live. The best char- 
acteristics of men have been called forth; the world has 
never seemed to have so noble a future before it; in attain- 
ing that future the life that has just ended here has had no 
inconspicuous part. 

We cannot but let our minds run back, this morning, 
over the life of President Garfield. When he reached 
active manhood the national crime of slavery was just 
beginning to emerge into the necessary activity by which it 
was to be crushed out. He was on the side of the anti- 
slavery cause. He lived just too late to be one of those 
noble men who, when that cause seemed hopeless, lifted up 
their voices and declared this country must be free. In the 
year in which the war broke out he was 30 years old; it was 
impossible that such a man should not be in the service of 
his country. He was a brave soldier who left the army to 
strengthen it from the floor of Congress. He was identified 
with the drafts, with the emancipation of the black men, 
with the opinion that the liberated slave must be a citizen. 
By-and-by, when the war was stopped, there came other 
associations. The South was to be educated and reconciled, 
the financial obligations of the country were to be honored 
and redeemed. There has been no large cause in all the 
fifteen years since the war in which the heart of Garfield 
was not interested, and for the support of which his voice 
was not heard. We all know the story of his election, the 
history of his short administration, the dreadful manner of 
his death. What shall we say of his life and character? 



THE MAN OF HIS TIME. 129 

In the first place, Ave cannot but remember how truly he 
was a man of his time. He recognized what was the next 
thing to be done. His recognition of what God was doing, 
and, tlierefore, of what a servant of God should be doing, 
is a striking feature in his history. Faithful to human 
freedom, loyal to the Union, faithful to the honesty of the 
country, insistent ujjon the purity of the Government, and 
determined that it should not be in the interest of a few 
but in that of the whole people — standing before all these 
issues, he quailed before none of them. With that record 
he stands in history glorified, indeed, by the death he has 
died, but having his real claim to fame in his eloquent, 
earnest, unswerving allegiance through all his life to these 
causes. 

It is necessary that we should look not simply at this 
public life, but at the personal characteristics of the man. 
Think how the people have been studying him; think how 
through the closed door of his sick chamber they have stud- 
ied him and understood him as scarcely anybody else has 
been understood. His intellectual life seems to have been 
singularly interesting. If there has been in the country 
any intellectual history that is thoroughly symmetrical it 
is this. He combined to a marvelous degree the practical 
and the philosophical. 

There has been no man of afl'airs who so understood the 
philosophy underlying the things that lay about him. That 
is the secret of the power that made his intellectual life 
strong in the nation. There is also something beautiful 
about his moral life. He was not spared from temptation, 
but he has shown that it is possible for a man to live amon^ 
us and be preserved from yielding to temptation. In the 
life of Gartield there was a positive devotion that saved him 
from those temptations under which his brethren, with 
broken reputations, were tumbling about him. 
9 



130 THE MAN OF HIS TIME. 

Then there came his social nature. It was genuine; it 
was the unsought utterance of his love. If he had gone on 
to old age he would always have gathered others around 
hira to receive from him lessons of the past. He had a 
cordial sympathy with humanity, which showed itself in a 
friendly way to those who came in contact with him, and 
BO those who were near him most loved him most. This is 
the highest eulogy of a man who led both a public and a 
private life. 

Around him was a life of culture and refinement. He 
carried into the field with hira a copy of Horace; he stole 
away from dull and unimportant debates in Congress into 
the library to dip into the rich wells of English literature. 
That meant enlargement and refinement of life. His 
thought was as fine as a woman's and as strong as that of a 
man. He was shaping the destiny of the Nation and of 
the world; his reputation, therefore, is not hard to account 
for. 

And there is something else— the deep religiousness of 
President Garfield, with a profound honor for God, with a 
sincere love for Jesus Christ. Having united himself early 
in life with one of the simplest and smallest, but one of 
the most earnest and true religious denominations in our 
land, of it he lived an obedient servant of Jesus Christ. 
That religion was always present with him. The man who 
loved God and knew God has gone to God. These are char- 
acteristics of him; as we run over them we see they are not 
those of brilliant deeds. No man can tell when he began 
to be famous — when the country began to trust him as it 
did. Is there nothing noble in a reputation like this, stand- 
ing betpre the world, made up of characteristics of admi- 
rable humanity — a reputation that is a combination in their 
mightiest proportion of those things which all true men 
strive for? He trusted and believed in his countrymen and 



THE MAN OF HIS TIME. 131 

in the world ; there was shown the great power that enabled 
him to use all the characteristics of that life that has just 
been ended. 

If one could stand now before the young men of Ameri- 
ca — those of the country rich only in their intellectual and 
moral attainments and possibilities, those of the cities par- 
alyzed by the material riches they have not won — what 
would one want to put before them but the character of 
James A. Garfield ? Let them know that in this Nation in 
which God has set their lives any man may run the road of 
truth and honor. Let them know from this life that it is 
possible to live in public life and to be honest; that where 
subtlety is futile, simplicity is great; that the country has 
called a straightforward man to its Presidential chair. 
Every man may be true, brave, earnest and simple; his 
country will honor him, and if it does not make him Pres- 
ident, his influence will be felt through all time and will be 
for lasting good. 

I have talked of Mr. Garfield as if he had passed away 
from us by some common fate. The dreadful tragedy that 
has closed that life, has caused a revelation of his character 
that otherwise might have been unseen except by the eye 
of God. The Nation grows strong by great sorrows. It 
has been stimulated by the struggle with the great Rebel- 
lion, by the slaying of that other President ; it must be 
that it has something else of which to rid itself, that this 
life should be laid down to raise us up. This sorrow will 
leave for us a great fame and reputation in the land ; it is 
a great thing for a nation to have one more man set in its 
pantheon. When we assemble to-morrow at the hour 
when the President's remains are laid in the ground, we 
should remember what his soul is doing ; we should re- 
member the influence with which he goes forth into the 
history of the country ; we should remember the vast and 



]:','i THE MAN OF HIS TIME. 

unknown, but fascinating service into which he goes as the 
child of God. To-day let us sit around his coffin and say 
one to another, "He was faithful unto death." God has 
given unto him the crown of life. May God give us each 
the eame faith and the same reward. 



A NATION MOURNS. 



By Ex-Gov. C. K. Datis. 



Delivered at the Memorial Services in St Paul, Minn., Sept 26, 1881. 

A NATION mourns to-day. A people goes with slow and 
measured steps through streets made sombre with the trap- 
pings of woe, under funeral arches, to the measures of dis- 
consolate music, wailing its farewell lamentations, to bury 
and to praise — 

" the ruins of the noblest man 

That ever lived In the tide of times." 

The world is darkened to us. The designs of Providence 
move to their appointed ends through so vast an orbit that 
we cannot see through our tears the season of fruitage from 
such a desolation as that which this eclipse has caused. 
We somehow. feel as if our very institutions are tainted 
by complicity with this monstrous crime, and are accessa- 
ries to it, and that the whole responsibility cannot be 
bounded by the nature of the vulgar murderer whose hand 
has drawn a pall over the land. It is as if some ancient 
fate, working to its ends through the agencies of inno- 
cence and guilt alike, had fulfilled a remorseless destiny and 
smitten down the dynasty of free government, while, like 
the chorus of some classic tragedy, a people chants the 
words of comfortless mourning. All are here. The labor- 

> (133) 



134 A NATION MOURNS. 

er, the scholar, to whom no like catastrophe is told by histo- 
ry, the statesmen saddening over the fact that within twen- 
ty years two presidents have been murdered the business 
man, tbe woman, and the little child, wide-eyed with won- 
der and with grief — all are here to mourn. 

The sermon, the eulogy, the dirge, the threnody will end, 
and the dead President will pass into history, with all his 
human faults atoned for, by his sacrifice. History often 
falsely sees the character of a man through the adit of such 
a death, for there is no prospective so distorting. It is 
probable that Garfield will always stand in this illusory and 
scenic light, and it is well, perhaps, for the force of exam- 
ple, that this should be so. Death teaches no finer precepts 
than are taught by the lives and death of men who, good 
and pure, and dedicated apparently to the consummation 
of a great career, are thus brought down untimely. It was 
BO with him. He had finished no career. He had not fal- 
len the leader of any disastrous political measure. He had 
been conspicuous, though not pre-eminent, in the press of 
political leadership. That he was capable to do all that 
men more self-assertive aspired to do every one knew. 
Still it was felt for years that he had at no time put forth 
all his strength. Upon all questions of statesmanship ho 
stood in the van of the most advanced thought. Upon the 
fleeting questions of the hour, those mere expediences of 
the moment, he was seldom heard to speak. 

He seemed to be a man in preparation and ripening 
slowly for the performance of some great, ultimate duty, 
which sliould surpass the daily tasks of other men, however 
well performed, and thus round out that crescent life to 
an orb of never fading light. But this was not to be. He 
has been stayed in his course. All hope of success or dread 
of failure is at an end, and we are free to consider the 
example of what this man might have become. From 



A NATION MOURNS. 135 

earliest life he was an assiduous student, and thus became 
next perhaps to .the younger Adams, the most variously 
instructed man of all our j^residents. It is exemplary to 
know the wide range of liis studies. The classics had 
modeled his mind to antique simplicity and beauty of 
proportion. No speaker of English, on either side of the 
ocean, was his superior in the command of its resources. 
Whatever was to be known of the operation of those 
political forces of conservation or destruction which in all 
ages work upon all governments he knew. He was a 
student both diverse and minute. He was graced with the 
adornments of literature as well as armored in its panoply. 

It was pecular to this man that all he knew he knew how 
to use. He played many parts and received a plaudit in 
all. He had been a laborer with his hands, a college pres- 
ident, a theologian, a soldier, and a statesman. Each vo- 
cation was but a process in constructing the perfected man, 
and now that all externals have been taken away and the 
work has ended, we can see an edifice of such manhood, so 
widely spread, so spacious and so high that there are few 
such in the realm of history. The natural elements of the 
man were plainly discernible through the pellucid sim- 
plicity of his character. His perception of duty was clear, 
and his tendency to its performance was a moral gravita- 
tion. 

He doubtless had great ambition, but it was to noble 
ends; it was the ambition which honors seek and which 
runs not after honors. Ready to serve but not self-serving, 
would be an appropriate motto for the man. He was not 
that padded statesman, too well known in our day, made 
up of newspaper commendations. Nor can any taint be 
found in his career of that dastardly self-promotion which 
wins its infamous way over the destruction of other men — 
that caitiff envy which spends its malignant force in the 



136 A NATION MOURNS. 

despoilment of larger and better natures. His lor^ical pro- 
cesses seldom consisted in scholastic ability of deduction, 
but instinctive sense and exposition of the true relation of 
facts and situations to principals. They were constructive, 
selective and analogical, and tlie result was that his conclu- 
sions and the ways by which he reached them, argued for 
themselves as a perfect piece of architecture does. 

This cursory estimate of this scholar, soldier and states- 
man would be ilkiperfect if it failed to recognize an endow- 
ment which he had, and which is rarely possessed by men 
of affairs. He was endowed with the imaginative faculty 
to an extent unequalled by an American statesman. It was 
subtle, far seeing, and brought into correlative relations 
things most remote and diverse. The tributary forces of 
his scholarship were therefore always at his command, and 
the result was a wealth of illustrative power in which he 
resembled Edmund Burke. Who will ever forget the sen- 
tence which fell from his lips upon the tumultuary conven- 
tion at Chicago: " But I remember it is not the billows, but 
the calm level of the sea, from which all heights and depths 
are measured." And that convention, measuring its duty 
from that standard, chose the man who doubtless repre- 
sented best the calm level of popular thought. AVitli his 
accession to the presidency an exceeding peace spread over 
the nation. Prosperity opened all her garners. It seenjed 
as if our years of trial were past and gone, and that under 
the rule of this large-natured, generous man, the Saturnian 
days had come again. 

But in a moment all was changed. The President, who 
by constitution and action, was showing himself to bo an 
antagonist to every corroding political evil of the thues, 
who combined the virtues of our best statesmen wiii the 
endowments of the ripe learning by which States are ni%Ce 
great and governed well, was shot down by a disappoifiti^'i 



A NATION MOURNS. 137 

oflSce-seeker in the capital of the Nation. It was a brutal 
murder, like those assassinations which mark the annals of 
every corrupt state when office and plunder become the 
controllin*^ forces of administration. 

It becomes us at this moment, when sorrow makes every 
mind capable of instruction, to learn the lesson of the hour. 
For sometimes nations can be taught only by calamity, and 
this instructor cites us before her now. We must raise our 
processes of popular government to a higher plane, through 
reforms deep and permanent, or we are but at the beginning 
of calamities like this. It is the instruction of all time that 
when a government becomes personal, when it becomes 
merely the instrument of personal aggrandizement through 
few or many ojffices, corruption and violence strike hands 
together for its destruction. Since the foundation of this 
government three political murders have been committed, 
and the victim in every instance has been the personal ex- 
ponent of what was best in public sentiment, killed by one 
of whom what was worst, had taken full possession. 

Harrison, Lincoln and Garfield, each in their time rep- 
resented the elements of thought which tended best toward 
our national greatness and perpetuity. Do not misunder- 
stand me as alluding here to any of those temporary and 
incidental distinctions in the workings of American thouo-ht 
which have the name of party. The occasion and the fact 
prohibit this. I mean to say that these were men whose 
abounding love of country had wedded them to principles 
which rose above the fleeting party distinctions of the 
hour, and whose duty and love it was to place our institu- 
tions on a more lasting basis than mere party sentiment 
ever can. Each of these great men was a victim to the 
personal politics which preceded and disgraced their times. 

These evils have debauched the public conscience for 
many years. The strife to get office, to retain office, or to 



l;38 A NATION MOURNS. 

dispossess from office, is the master passion of our politics. 
Our statesmen have become too often mere leaders of a 
personal following, who fight in the liope of reward. Our 
politics consist in mean advantages, in disreputable practi- 
ces, in the use of men, in the assassination of character, 
and the enjoyment of office. For many years not one dis- 
tinctive political issue has stirred the stagnant, rotting level 
of our political life. This lust and self-seeking for office 
has become the pyaemia of our system, and, predict recov- 
ery as we may, the patient is dying of political assassina- 
tion. 

The shot which has laid our hopes so low could never 
have been tired in the better times of the Republic. We have 
our duty to gather to our hearts the bloody instructions of 
our loss. Death has left us this to do. It grasped Garfield's 
noble heart and it is stilled forever, never more to beat 
high in triumphant anticipation of a country made greater 
and better by his powers. It trod the chambers of that 
massive brain and thought, and the soul left their eartlily 
palace to live eternal in the heavens in a house not made 
with hands. It smote with its " petrific mace " that manly 
form, and it ceased to be the tabernacle of life. It is a 
sight to call up prophets to walk the land crying wo! wo! 
to all who live therein, for the evangelist of munler has 
come. Who could believe that here where schools abound, 
here where all men are free, here where religion teaches 
from more than ten thousand pulpits the lessons of heaven 
to earth, here where the awful sword and the righteous 
scales of justice are suspended high and untarnished over 
all, where thought and speech are free, that the fountain of 
official life could be changed to a pool of blood? 

The genius of free government mourns over her slaugh- 
tered son. She calls up from the hells of history the 
assassins of past times for an excuse and parallel, but she 



A NATION MOURNS. 139 

finds none. Thej say, cite us not — we struck at evils when 
we struck at men ; and slie says as she gathers the ashes 
of Lincoln and of Garfield, and lays them reverently in the 
everlasting urn of history: " O, my children, it is you who 
have made possible .these acts! The lessons which I taught 
you, you have forgotten! You are depraved with pride, lust 
for power, wicked ambitions, hatred, malice and all un- 
charitableness, and here is the bloody end. Unto your 
care, O people, I committed ray choicest son from the 
sweet security of domestic life and set him to rule over you. 
He was gifted with the learning of ages; whatever was 
taught by the records of the ancient republic, or of later 
times, he knew for you. 

"The love of country burned in that stainless heart like an 
altar flame; in him the North forgot its rancor, and the 
South its defeat. Charity ministered at his side with her 
sweetest works; prosperity was spreading over you like 
summer over a sterile land; all was well except your own 
rancorous hearts, and it is thus ye give him back! Listen, 
while 1 repeat the lesson which you must learn to live. 
States sink beneath tlie tide of time, not alone under the 
foreign invader, nor under the usurping ruler; nor under, 
the debauched church, nor under providential annihilation. 
They are lost by their own abdication of that public spirit 
which works to noble ends. Show me that nation whose 
heart has become corrupt, who has made its liberties a pro- 
curess to its personal lusts for money or for place — where 
fraud rules in the mart, hypocrisy pollutes the temple, and 
corruption putrifies in the councils, and I will show you a 
people whose feet have taken hold on the paths which lead 
into the Gehenna of the nations — and so surely as I live ye 
have become such a people." 

Well will it be for us to heed these warning words. Let 
TLB here, at this chastening hour, absolve ourselves from our 



140 



A NATION MOURNS. 



rancor, our self-love, our party liate, our maliGrnant greed 
for office, and come to know tliat we have that to save and 
perpetuate which is greater and more precious than our 
transitory personal interests — the state, our earthly all in 
all. 



GARFIELD'S DOMESTIC LIFE. 



By Rev. L. W. Bkiqham. 



Delivered at the Memorial Services in LaCrosse, Wis., Sept 26, U8L 

Ladiks and Gentlembn: — I come to help weave the gar- 
land we place upon the brow of our illustrious dead. My 
theme touches Jhe most tender and ennobling elements 
of his character. However great Mr. Garfield was as a sol- 
dier, scholar or statesman, he will be longest remembered 
as a loving obedient son, a devoted husband; as a true- 
hearted man in all the social relations. Unfortunately, the 
public know but little of this man in private life, except 
what was manifested during the last few weeks of pain and 
impending death. 

We know that so noble and true a man as he, in all pub- 
lic trusts, must have made a good and pure home. All 
that we have seen during these last sad weeks confirms our 
expectations, and we understand and appreciate all Mr. 
Garfield's good qualities and sound religious principles. 
But what has touched and moved our hearts has been his 
tender consideration for those he loved more even than his 
own life. Not the least of his public service was his pure 
home-life, that to-day blesses and exalts every home in our 
land. The American people have never had such an expe- 
rience before when we were all brought together around 

(141) 



142 GARFIELD'S DOMESTIC LIFE. 

one bedside of suffering. The sick chamber of onr Presi- 
dent has its counterpart in every household. It recalls 
the hours of watching, waiting, hoping, praying and be- 
reavement through which we have passed. 

The real life of Mr. Garfield centered in his domestic re- 
lations, and his highest inspirations were drawn from the 
home. Mr. Garfield, like most men who have attained to 
eminence, could attribute his success to a good mother, and 
to a wise and fitting choice of a companion for life, and 
Buch was his nobility that he could prize a mother's love, 
and appreciate a good wife, making home the most sacred 
spot on earth. 

Every step in his career from boyhood to manhood shows 
his first thought was of the loved ones at home. And as 
the honors come, his thought is of the pleasure it conferred 
on the home friends. They could never divide or alienate 
his heart from the old home. He was one of the few 
statesmen to whom a word of love and commendation 
from his mother and wife, was dearer than the honors of 
the world or shouts of the multitude. His tenderness of 
heart and Mrs. Garfield's wifely devotion have sanctified 
every home in the land, and there burns to-day upon 
the altar of every heart a purer, truer, holier and diviner 
love. His love had been tried by the ambitions and hon- 
ors of the world, and lastly in the fiery furnace of heroic 
sufi'ering. 

His first act, after the oath of office had been adminis- 
tered in Washington, was to kiss his aged raotlier and wife. 
Here was he true to life. The first impulse of his noble 
heart in that supreme moment, when crowned with the 
hierhest honors the world could i^ive, turned toward those 
he loved, and who, more than all tlie world besides, were 
interested in his promotion. They sliared his honors as 
they had his cares and labors. The son and husband was 



GARFIELD'S DOMESTIC LIFE. 143 

here greater than the President or statesman; his heart- 
bonds stronger than all other ties. It vras an honor to his 
manhood that he should first remember her who bore him; 
toiled and prayed for his success. She sowed in tears, that 
he might reap in honors. 

He was the proud realization of all her mother-hopes, 
and no other person could so fully rejoice in his prosper- 
ity as that dear old mother, or, she who had toiled by his 
side through the days of poverty, darkness and obscurity, a 
help-meet, indeed ; one now a rightful sharer in his har- 
vest of honors. Who, more than they could feel for him; 
and what more sublime exhibition of manhood than, when 
James A. Garfield, the President of 50,000,000 ]>onple, 
gave this testimonial of the tenderness of his heart and no- 
bility of his nature, in thus recognizing his mother and 
wife. All the subsequent events show that this act was a 
spontaneous tribute of a man, whose domestic nature was 
the strongest cord that bound him to life. It was this ten- 
derness of love, this beauty of home life that has touched 
all hearts, so that his death became a personal bereave- 
ment to every man, woman and child. 

Every home should mourn his loss and consecrate itself 
to a purer and diviner love. When stricken down by the 
assassin his first thought was of the wife, and so throu-T-h all 
those weary days of pain, and patient waiting for death, the 
anxiety and solicitude of his heart was toward those dearer 
Chan life itself. On that fatal morning he says : "I had 
rather die than that she should have a relapse." In the 
heroic struggle for life, his heart turned toward the old home 
of his early years, full of tender memories and hallowed 
associations. Even when the hour had come that the silver 
cord was loosed, and his bark sent over the dark waters, the 
honors of the world and grand possibilities for future use- 
fulness, now passing away forever, where lost from con- 



144 GARFIELD'S DOMESTIC LIFE. 

scionsnefis ; but there survived to the last momenta vision 
of the old home, and the last dim consciousness of the dying 
hour placed him in the family circle, surrounded by mother, 
wife and children. 

Thus he passed away to the higher life, there to wait till the 
home above is completed, and the family gathered in, one 
by one. 



A PICTURE. 

By Hon. John H. Craio. 



Orator of the day at the Memorial Service, San rrancteco, Sept 38, 188L 

Ladies and Gentlemen: — As the beginning of these sad 
memorial services, what can I say to you? There are times 
when silence is more eloquent than any words which mor- 
tal tongue can utter. Though these lips of mine were 
touched with sacred fire, in vain would they try to give ex- 
pression to the unspeakable pathos of this hour. After 
lono- weeks of agonizing suspense, the heart-rending trage- 
dy is ended — the illustrious sufferer is at rest; and as the 
scene closes a<- his grave, and t'le curtain falls, the world is 
in tears. 

Our physical presence is here to-day to do him honor, 
but our thoughts and our hearts are far away, where at this 
hour the mortal remains of our dead President are com- 
mitted to the tomb. Our eyes look across the intervening 
space, and behold the autumn sun shining from heaven on 
the solemn", imposing scene. Before his open grave, un- 
covered, the Nation stands in tears, ^he majesty of these fret 
and mighty States is bowed in reverence over it; and the 
homage of the civilized world, like an invisible presence, 
° 10 (145) 



146 A PICTURE. 

consecrates the beautiful spot, and makes it holy ground 
forever more. 

"Hush! the dead march wails in the people's ears; 

The black earth yawns, the mortal disappears. 

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; 

And he is gone who seemed so great; 

Wearing upon his brow a truer crown 

Than any wreath that man can weave him," 

This is not the hour to speak of his renown. We forget 
the glorj of his example, and the inspiration of his fame, 
in the sad thought that his living presence has passed away 
forever from the earth. The hour of fresh sorrow is nof 
the hour for eulogy. The universal grief of the Nation and 
the world speaks his eulogy, and at the eloquence of that 
grief the most gifted tongue falters and is mute. That 
grief has come to us all with the force of a personal be- 
reavement. It has touched the hearts of men in this and 
other lands, and awakened them to better inspirations. 
Never was sorrow so universal and profound. Never was 
such homage paid at any mortal shrine — to any mortal name. 
Surely the man whose death has put the world in mourn- 
ing needs no eulogy. 

We are fast making history — our country is but a cen- 
tury old. We are yet in the morning of our national life. 
The full noontide of our national glory has not yet bright- 
ened the heavens above us. But our history is filled with 
achievements and examples which the world cannot afford 
to lose. Great events are crowded upon each other, which 
are shaping the world's destiny, and marking its progress. 
And great names have " leaped into the light," to shine 
.forevermore. The names of heroes who, in defense of the 
right, have led the front of battle — of statesmen, "Who 
knew the seasons when to take occasion by the hand and 
make the bounds of freedom wider yet." 

But this heart-rending tragedy is the saddest, most pa- 



A PICTURE. 147 

thetic event in onr history. Its effect on our future as a 
nation we know not. That will depend on the manner in 
which we improve the great and solemn lesson which it 
teaches. But this we know, that the example of the illus- 
trious victim will be a lofty inspiration to all coming times, 
and generations yet unborn, as they read the page where it 
is written, will proudly weep, and find his name the dear- 
est, tenderest memory in all our history. 

Look at the picture which that page will present, and let 
me read it. It presents an extreme contrast. It is shaded 
from the extreme of human guilt to that of human excel- 
lence and glory. It is black with the darkest dye of hu- 
man crime. It is stained with innocent blood, richer than 
the blood ot' -kings. It is blotted with human tears. Is 
illumed with the tender light of human love, and radiant 
with glory born of suffering endured with a gentle, heroic 
patience almost divine. As it is presented to the world, no 
W'Onder that all hearts are stirred to their profoundest 
depths. There seems to be wanting not one single circum- 
stance to heighten the pathos of the sad, tragical event. 
We shudder as we think of the vile, guilty wretch cower- 
ing in his cell. We pity and do homage to the great and 
martyred victim. Our tongues falter and our eyes are 
dimmed as we speak of the bereaved, orphaned children, 
the faithful, heroic wife, and the dear old mother, mourning 
for her noble son, and longing to lay down her weary head 
beside him in the grave. 

The most touching thing connected with the assassina- 
tion of President Garfield, next to his amazing sufferings 
and the gentle, heroic, amazing patience with which they 
were endured is the glimpse which it gave to the world 
into the privacy of his family life, and the tender relations 
which it disclosed. This, more than his high position and 
his fame, has won for him the homage of all true and loyal 



148 A PICTURE. 

li(;!uta. For we instiitctively know that he, who in a long 
exaltod public career, and even in the highest place ou 
(•arili, is true to the gentle virtues of home, and the duties 
of a tender father, a loving husband, and a noble son, must 
he a true, a good and noble man. Rising bj his own un- 
aided powers from the humblest, lowliest lot in life to the 
most exalted place on earth, and filling his high seat with 
a gentle dignity and a lofty purpose, he was the representa- 
tive of the supreme sovereignty of the American people. 

Ijut he was something more — he was the representative 
and ty})e of gentle, cultured, resolute, self-reliant, noble 
American manhood. When the free choice of a great and 
free people is fixed on such a man, exalting hijn to be their 
ruler, no crowned and sceptered king, born of royal blood, 
to the heritage of an empire, commands from the world 
such honor while he nobly lives, or such homage when he 
nobly dies. 

The hearts of the people all over this broad land, in the 
south as well as the north, are closer together to-day than they 
ever were before, joined in the sacred fellowship of a com- 
mon sorrow. Past alienations are forgotten; old resent- 
ments are quenched in tears, and all dissentions are buried 
in the grave of him who has not lived or died in vain. Let 
ns learn the great and solemn lesson of this hour, and follow 
the impulses and inspirations which it awakens, and so shall 
we be able, even in this dark hour of national bereavement, 
to forecast the years to come, 

" And flod In lou a gain to match." 



GARFIELD'S LEGACY. 



Bt Rabbi Lilienthal. 



Delivered at the Memorial Service in Cincinnati, Sept. 2fl, 188L 

Shakespeare, in his Romeo and Juliet, says: 

* All things, that we ordained festival. 
Turn from their office to black fuiu'ral; 
Our instruments to melancholy bells. 
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast; 
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges cliaiiKe, 
Our blooming flowers serve for a bury'd corse, 
And all things change them to the contrary." 

The English bard has forstalled onr ^rief, onr Tnonrnin<»', 
a Nation's wailing! Who of us will and can ever r<»ri,'t;t 
that Monday night, when the bells of the city, with rlieir 
heartless iron tongues, announced the doath-knell o\' tlie 
Nation's patient! We had hoped ai^ainst hope; we liad 
had faith against fate — but then we added gloomy silenco 
to the silent night, and lifted the tearful eyes unto the stars, 
and realized the crushing words sung by Barrett : 

"I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless. 
That only men. Incredulous of dcsjiair. 
Half-taught in anguisli, throuj,'h the midnight air 
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access 
Of shrieking and reproach 1 " 

Shrieking upward ! it was so natural. A Nation's cry of 
agony and despair ought to be forgiven ; but lot us l>e 

(149) 



150 GARFIELD'S LEGACY. 

silent, and listen in deepest humility to the great lesson, 
given in sublime eloquence by our lamented martyr Presi- 
dent, when he said : 

"The world's history is a divine poem, of which the his- 
tory of every nation is a canto, and every man a word. Its 
strains have been pealing along down the centuries, and 
though there have been mingled the discords of warring 
cannon and dying men, yet to the philosopher and histo- 
rian — the humble listener — there has been a divine melody 
running through the song, which speaks of hope and hal- 
cyon days to come." 

This was our Garfield's faith, this his unshaken hope, 
this the word of comfort which he sends from his coffin 
and his grave, to his mourning countrymen. 

Alas, we stand in bitter need of such a comforting, and 
cheering admonition. Let us listen to it; let us mind it, 
for it comes from the greatest and most impressive pulpit 
— the coffin ! And not only we, the American people, his 
people, the whole world needs it; the parliament of man, 
the federation of the world which is thrilled with horror, 
which amidst the sighs and tears stands stupefied at the un- 
natural, foul and strange murder of our President. 

Kino-s and emperors, in their marble palaces and on their 
golden thrones, must tremblingly ask : What will be our 
lot, our future, when the man not installed by the grace of 
God, but by the free choice of a free people, cannot escape 
the assassin's dagger, the assassin's bullet ? 

And the nations of the world, panting for freedom, must 
ask : What is all this boasted liberty for, when the chief 
of a Government of the people, by the people, and for 
the people, can be made the target of ruthless, premeditated 
murder ? Shall mankind not despair ? Must you not 
shroud the starry banner of human right and liberty in 
deep, deep mourning ? 



GARFIELD'S LEGACY. 151 

No such shrouding ! No surrender ! for, from the coflBn- 
pulpit resound the other great words which James A. Gar- 
field uttered, with patriotic voice and lofty spirit, when 
hearing of the death of Lincoln: " God reigns and the Gov- 
ernment at Washington still lives !" 

This is the great legacy he left to his people. These are 
the memorable words which the mourning yet grateful Na- 
tion shall ensrrave on the monument to be erected to his 
blessed memory. No, rest in peace, thou Martyr of the 
people; over thy grave, in yonder beautiful cemetery, shall 
ehine like the eternal stars in heaven, that starry banner, 
for which thou hast fought, for which thou hast bled, under 
whose embracing folds thou hast died! 

I shall not speak of his wonderful career, it has been told 
and repeated by thousands and ten thousands of tongues- 
The world is full of his praise. How befittingly have the 
press and merchants of the metropolis expressed the Na- 
tion's sentiment when they said: 

" In the death of President Garfield the Nation loses one 
of its prominent citizens, a wortiiy representative of what- 
ever is best in it, whose career has been singularly typical 
of the noblest American aspiration and success." 

He will always be remembered, not only as a statesmaa 
of lar^e experience and commanding abilities; not only as 
an orator, whose words of eloquent wisdom were efiective 
and often controlling in debate; not only as a patriot soldier 
whose skillful generalship and unhesitating courage had 
been si'^nally shown on the bloodiest fields, but also, more 
affectionately as a faith. ul man who had risen by his owa 
eiibrts from the luiui blest station to the highest position; 
who had gaine 1 rare culture in spite of the sliarp limita- 
tions of poverty, and who, having honored and adorned every 
office committed to him, has endeared him-jelf as never be- 
fore to the hearts of his countrymen by the fortitude with 



152 GARFIELD'S LEGACY. 

whicli in the eighty days of his suffering he has borne paio 
and faced without fear an imminent death. 

This is the verdict of the country; what can we add to 
it but the beautiful words of Rowe: 

** What can I pay thee for this noble usage 
But grateful praise ? so Heaven itself is paid." 

I shall not dwell on the great success which in all depart- 
ments of our Government distinguished his short career a3 
our President. The Nation felt encouraged, hopeful, look- 
ing for still greater achievement. We rather say with 
Franklin: 

— " To the generous mind 
The heaviest debt is that of gratitude, 
When it is not in our power to repay it." 

Still prompted by this filial and unpayable gratitude, the 
Nation throngs around his coffin and grave, to pay him the 
last tribute of honor and affection. The representatives of 
the people will accompany the earthly remains to thoir 
resting-place. Mountains of floral tributes will testify to 
the love, respect and veneration in which he was held by 
his mourning fellow-citizens; and from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific the melancholy bells, the sullen dirges, the gloomy 
processions will announce: " We mourn the Nation's loss." 

But the flowers will fade; the sound of the dirges will 
pass away; the mourning crowds will disperse, and will this 
be all by which we intend either to honor his memory or to 
profit by the terrible lesson of his death? 

Listen again to the warning voice, coming from his grave: 
"God reigns and the Government at Washington still 
lives;" and must live. Yes, must live; and it is our duty 
the sacred duty of the living ones, to guard and preserve it, 
and to execute the will of the departed Chief. 

I have read this week some of the infamous doctrines first 
planted on American ground by Aaron Burr, and the-iice- 



f 



GARFIELD'S LEGACY. 158 

forth spread with baneful activity througl^out the land- 
Here are some of these maxims: 

" Politics is a game, the prizes of which are offices and 
contracts." 

" Fidelity to party must be the sole virtue of a politician." 

*' No man must be allowed to suffer on account of his 
fidelity to his party, no matter how odious to the people 
he may make himself." 

" The end and aim of the professional politician is to 
keep great men down and put little men up. Little men, 
owiniT all to the wire-puller, will be governed by him. 
Great men, having ideas and convictions, are perilous even 
to tools." 

This is the cancer which eats at the vitals of the Govern- 
ment and the country. It must be cut out, and marked by 
the dreadful example we have witnessed, the people in its 
majestic sovereignty must rise and must demand the unde- 
layable reform ; then we shall see day instead of the night of 
the grave, and the owls shall fly back into the haunts of 
darkness and nothingness. 

Thus Washino^ton's Government shall live, indeed; thus 
and then we shall love thy memory, sainted martyr; and in 
the name of all of us, I close with Carlyle's verses ; 

" I find a pious gratitude disperse 

Within my soul ; and every thought to him 

Engenders a warm sigh within me, which, 

Like curls of holy incense, overtake 

Each other in my bosom, and enlarge. 

With their embrace, his sweet remembranca." 

Farewell 1 Fare well! 



GARFIELD-THE TYPICAL AMERICM. 



Bt Prof. J. C. Shatttjck. 



Delivered at the Memorial Service In Greeley, Col., Sept 26, 188L 

James A. Garfield was a typical American. He was 
born amid the forests. A great many generations, since 
the settlement of Plymouth and Jamestown, have been born 
in the forests, and have given the strength of their arms for 
the rendering of those forests fit for the habitation of man. 

He was typical in his birth, and in his early boyhood 
learned to swing the axe amid the great trees that grew 
around his father's farm, which strengthened his muscles 
and rendered him vigorous of frame. 

He was typical in the circumstances of his youth. No 
man can read his life, as millions to-day are hearing it, 
without being convinced that these circumstances and 
struggles were necessary to make him the man he was. 
Yet no circumstances could have swallowed up such a God- 
endowed man as James A. Garfield. I don't believe, how- 
ever, that if he had been born to wealth and position, if he 
had been able to pave his way without difficulty tlirough 
school and college with the temptations and surroundings 
of wealth, that he would have been less enervated, for I be- 
lieve that to give him the fiber he possessed, and which 
made him essentially the great man that he was, standing 

(154) 



GARFIELD— THE TYPICAL AMERICAN. 155 

prominently among the great men of the earth, there was 
needed just that determination which he earl^ formed, and 
which was greatly fostered by the circumstances of his 
youth. 

He had determined on a college course, and was told that 
probably in the course of twelve years, and by hard labor, 
he could work his way through college, without exterior 
help. Was he daunted? Oh, no! Says his biographer: 
" Every other impulse of his life became absorbed in that 
one — ' I will go through college;'" and he went through 
college — not in twelve years, but in eight — working day 
and night, at farm-work, carpentering, or anything that 
came to his hand; never an idle moment until he got 
through his college career. The circumstances of his edu- 
cation were fortunate in this, that thereby he came to know 
Mark Hopkins. 

On one occasion General Garfield said, " I I'ejoice, my 
friends, to see the great institutions of learning that are 
springing up out of the munificence of my countrymen all 
over this fair land, but I say to you that if I had it to do 
over again — to choose where I should attend college, and 
all these were to open their magnificent doors to me, and 
here stood Williams' old log cabin with Mark Hopkins in 
it as President, that would be college enough for me." 
Through our beloved martyred President, the influence 
of that one man, Mark Hopkins, will go on and 
on, blessing the human race long after the materials 
which now make the grand edifice called Williams College 
shall have crumbled into forgotten dust. So, too, with 
Garfield. He was typical in that he was among the very 
best, and his influence has changed the course of hun- 
dreds of young men. No one could come before him and 
listen to him without being drawu out of himself and up 
into the higher, nobler, purer sphere where he walked. 



156 GARFIELD— THE TYPICAL AMERICAN. 

and into the^ sweeter atmosphere which he breathed. 

[Tlie speaker liere related the incident of Garfield's dis- 
obeying orders in regard to delivering up slaves who bad 
escaped to our lines at the beginningof the war, and which, 
doubtless, was the first step that led to the proclamation of 
freedom. Also to show his kindness of heart and magna- 
nimity, related the story of the non-commissioned oflScer 
who went to sleep while guarding the entrance to head- 
quarters, and to whom Garfield apologized for falling over 
him, instead of placing him in the guard-house.] 

One instance more, showing the greatness of this man, 
as well as the clearness and keenness of his judgment: 
You will remember how high the feeling ran. North and 
South, during the year succeeding the war. General Gar- 
field was in his first term of Congress,- and not so thorough- 
ly known. Here came an issue which many of you will 
remember. Congress had passed an act providing that as 
fast as our lines were extended into the so-called Kebel 
States that the citizens thereof could form what was called 
a loyal government, and become States in the Union again; 
but President Lincoln vetoed the act. Soon after the veto 
old Ben Wade and Henry Winter Davis united in a letter 
which they published in the New York Tribune^ very 
sharply and very bitterly criticising Mr. Lincoln for this 
action. General Garfield stood by Wade and against the 
President in this issue. ITis district upheld the veto and 
condenmed the Wade and Davis letter. 

The time drew nigh when the district convention should 
re-nomiiiate Garfield or his successor; certain parties were 
very active, thinking they saw in this position that Garfield 
Had taken, an opportunity for brushing Garfield out of the 
way. And they worked that thing up so thoroughly and 
well that when the convention assembled one of their first 



I 



GABFIELD—THE TYPICAL AMERICAN. 157 

acts was to pass a series of resolutions indorsinn^ the Pres- 
ident and censuring Wade — thus involvin;.^ Gariield. 

Now mark the jnan. lie was a youiii^ man, in tlie prime 
of his manhood, who had set aside a very proinisinc^ milita- 
ry career, resigning his position as Major General in the 
army, and entered this new tield. Now everything looked 
dark for the future. He recognized the dangers of his be- 
ing set aside, and what did he do? He went to the conven- 
tion — not to lobby or button-hole the members, but to ex- 
press his decided opinions in regard to this matter. Be- 
fore his arrival upon the train, these resolutions had been 
passed by a large majority, and when he put in his appear- 
ance at the convention he was invited to address them. 
He only used a few short sentences in which he stated his 
convictions firmly and clearly, placing himself distinctly 
upon the side of Wade in this issue and giving his reasons 
therefor, concisely and pointedly. He then passed from the 
platform down the aisle, through the hall down stairs, on to 
his hotel, and afterwards to the train, supposing that there 
was no possible hope of a re-nomination. But he had vin- 
dicated his manhood. 

This man would not abate one jot of his private judgment 
upon a serious matter; no, not for the united voice of that 
district he loved so truly. AVhat was the result? Ah! the 
master had been there. The leader of the opposition and 
promoter of the resolutions sprung to his feet before the 
sound of Garlield's footsteps had died away in the hall, and 
said: 

" Mr. President and gentlemen of the convention : a man 
who has the moral courage to beard this convention in that 
manner deserves a nomination, and I move that General 
James A. Gariield be re-nominated by acchimatidn." And 
it was done, amidst great applause and enthusiasm. Such 
was the power of Gartield's influence, prompted by a depth 
of manhood and integrity seldom if ever excelled. 



158 GARF1ELI>-THE TYPICAL AMERICAN. 

During the past eighty days millions of eyes, though 
dimmed with tears, have been going over the record of hia 
life, and I dare any man to produce anything that stains 
the honor of this man, from the days of his boyhood until 
this sad nineteenth day of September, when this glorious 
record was closed. James A. Garfield was the highest type 
of a man we have been permitted to see. I have no expec- 
tation of ever again in my life seeing in the presidential 
chair a man so blameless in his private life, so noble in 
every phase of his character, so great in all lines of thought, 
and who has so strong a hold upon the hearts of this great 
people, as this man Garfield. I rejoice that I have lived to 
see such a man ; I rejoice that I am able to go over his 
career, day by day and year by year, and find it so faultless. 
I commend it to you, young and old. There is not a page 
of this eventful career that even the bitter hate of political 
passion can unfold that is not fair to the eyes and beautiful 
to all mankind. 

He has done remarkable things for this country. No 
man of his day gave more careful, thoughtful study to the 
important problems afi'ecting the welfare of the Republic; 
no man showed better judgment — so ripe and far-seeing. 
How we leaned upon him ! What a sense of security and 
confidence went over the country when we knew that his 
hand was guiding the helm. But to the honor of this man 
the Great Ruler of the Universe has thought it meet to add 
the martyr's crown. Lying there these eleven weeks in 
pain and suffering, he has been such a blessing to the 
United States of America and the civilized world, as neithei 
he nor any otiier man could have been in the prime of his 
strength and g^ory. His activities have been stilled that 
the voice of his Creator might the more clearly be heard. 

It 18 not what a man does in any one of his great suc- 
cesses that fixes his place among his contemporaries or in 



GARFIELD— THE TYPICAL AMERICAN. 159 

the judgment of posterity — oh, nof it is that something 
back of all these single actions that we call character; and 
it needed the assassin's pistol and the eighty days of suffer- 
ing to put the appropriate crown upon this man's brow, to 
show to all the full measure of his power and the character 
he had built up. 

And so, to-day, millions upon millions who gather to 
pay the last sad rites to this great and good and noble man, 
will say, " 'Tis welL " 



TRUE TO HIMSELF-FALSE TO NONE. 



By Hon. R. F. Pettibone. 



Delivered at the Memorial Services In Burlington, Wis., Sept. 26, 188L 

Less than half a century ago James A. Garfield was a 
babe in his cradle — to-day he is the loved and honored dead 
of this Nation and of humanity. 

What is the power that enabled him to tread this shining 
way from obscurity to world-wide renown ? I know of no 
better answer than may be found in his own words: " Dur- 
ing the twenty years that I have been in public life, I have 
tried to do one thing. Whether I was mistaken or other- 
wise, it has been the plan of my life to follow my convic- 
tions, at whatever personal cost to myself. I hiive repre- 
sented for many years a district in Congress whose appro- 
bation I greatly desired, but, though it may seem perhaps 
a little egotistical to say it, I yet desired still more the ap- 
probation of one person, and his name was Garfield." 

Yes, that is it; that is the secret of his power — true to 
himself, true to his own convictions of duty. And well 
did the world's great poet say: 

To thine ownself be trae, 

And it must follow, as the night the day, 

Thou canst not then prove false to any man." 

And the glorious path he trod from the forest clearing 

(160) 



TRUE TO HIMSELF— FALSE TO ^ONE. 161 

to the White House — from humble oblivion to fame, wide 
as humanity, is open to the humblest. What an inspira- 
tion to every young man burning with the great and noble 
ambitions of life. Thanks to God and the fathers for insti- 
tutions which make it possible that a day-laborer shall b© 
chiefest and best valued among us. 

We loved the hero for his splendid record written with 
steel amid the carnage and desolation of war. 

We loved him for his wise and brave, his dignified and 
unsullied course in public life during the past twenty 
years, but most of all, we loved him for his high manhood 
displayed in all the relations of life, for his devotion to his 
home, the most sacred spot to him upon earth. O how 
pitiful was his longing for that Mentor home when his 
every nerve was racking pain! 

And it was time that these old virtues were re-established. 
It is not the style in these later days to reverence an old 
mother. It is gone out of fashion for men to hold their 
wives above all other women, and it is not deemed neces- 
sary to continue the chivalry of love. Social vices abound. 
The home is no longer the dearest and most sacred spot 
upon earth. It is but a place to eat and sleep. But this 
man came bringing his quiet home to the first mansion in 
the land. 

Though a mighty man and a ruler of rulers, his mother 
was honored and reverenced, his wife was loved and cher- 
ished, his children were tenderly cared for, his home was 
his holy of holies — for he remembered that all these were 
a part of him, and had helped to make him what he was. 
O, what a thought for us. Without the home and its in- 
fluences a free government like ours is not possible for a 
day. In the true home center all the powers and forces 
that make men great. And when its pure influences stream 
forth into the current of public life, we know that the K. • 
11 



162 TRUE TO HIMSELF— FALSE TO NOl^E. 

tion is safe— that " tbe oroveriiment of the people, by the 
people, and for the people, shall uot perish from the earth." 
The past rises before me like a cloud. I see the babe in 
his humble cradle in the home of provertv and toil ; I see 
the youth struj^gliiig for daily bread in the sweat of his 
brow; I see the young man step by step working his way 
forward through all discouraging hindrances to the rank of 
a scholar; I see the man still young amid the roll of drums 
and the roar of battle, as he leads his men at Sandy Creek 
and Piketon; I see him as he rides across the field of fire at 
Chickamauga; I see him in the Halls of Congress winning 
bis way to the leadership of the House; I see the streets in 
^ew York crowded with maddened men: Lincoln was shot 
last night: thousands upon thousands are gathered in that 
great center of the Nation's commerce, furious witli rage and 
burning for revenge; I see Butler of Massachusetts with 
crape streaming from his arm, and hear his voice choked 
with tears — "Gentlemen, he died in the fullness of his 
power." A telegram is read: ''Seward is dead." I hear a 
wild cry from that frenzied throng which means death and 
desolation to hundreds. I hear a voice — " Another telegram 
from Washington," and in the moment's hush which 
follows, these words come with a clarion clearness: 

" Fellow-citizens: — Clouds and darkness are around 
about Him. His pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds 
of the sky. Justice and judgment are the habitation 
of his throne. Mercy and truth shall go before his face. 
Fellow-citizens, God reigns, and the Government at "Wash- 
inixton still lives!" 

And the frenzy and madness of the throng are quelled 
by that divinely-gifted man. O, what a propfiet's voice 
eeems that utterance, as we stand in the presence and 
the mystery of his death. 

"We love him for his tenderness to his mother, for his de- 



TRUE TO HIMSELF— FALSE TO NONE. 163 

votion to his wife, who was to him the one woman above all 
other women, for his companionsliip with his children. 
Aye! for these things he came into our hearts. 

Other men had been great leaders upon the battle-field 
and in legislative halls, but he, the great leader, was the 
filial son, the chivalrous husband, the kind father, the 
stanch friend. Who will foro^et that when the message 
was sent over the wires announcing his fall to tliat loved 
wife — it bore his words also to her: " He sends his love to 
jou." 

Again I see him as I saw him but yesterday at that his- 
toric gathering in the metropolis of the Northwest. The 
great building is packed with thousands upon thousands of 
men, an eager and yet fickle throng. The eloquent and regal 
senator from New York has finished his masterly and stir- 
ring presentation of the name of General Grant. From 
floor to rafter the building rocks with cheers. The world 
seems gone mad for the nomination of the Hero of Appo- 
mattox. The New York delegation seizes its banner and 
heads the procession down the aisles of the hall ; delega- 
tion after delegation follow, waving flags and banners, until 
the floor of the convention is the parade ground of an 
army, while the majestic Conkling waves his hand to the 
admiring galleries as a signal for fresh tumults of cheers. 

In the midst of this gigantic uproar, Ohio is called, and 
a delegate springs upon a table in front of the reporters. 
He is a man of fine physique, with a large head which seems 
more than half forehead; a clear eye, deep blue to his 
friends, but a cold gray to his foes, and his voice rings like 
a trumpet! His first words still the vast audience into the 
silence of death, and as he goes on towards a fitting climax, 
I hear him tell that Convention that not in Chicago, in the 
heat of June, but at the firesides of the Republic, in the 
days of November the contest will be decided, and that it 



164 TRUE TO HIMSELF— FALSE TO NONE. 

is the calm level of the sea below the tumult and the storm> 
by which all heights and depths are measured. I felt that 
whatever the outcome of that contest, the great and wise 
man whose voice is sounding in my ears, is fitter than they 
all to be the ruler of this great people. 

I see him as the flush comes into his face near the end 
of that memorable contest, when Wisconsin heads the break, 
and casts for him her seventeen votes — Thank God for "Wis- 
consin, — and then Indiana wheels into line, and then State 
after State forgets its favorite, and hastens to his banner. I 
see him after hejias taken the oath of office, and has spoken 
Ms inaugural tidings of conciliation and grand promise: 

"The Nation is resolutely facing to the front, resolved to 
employ its best energies in developing the great possibili- 
ties of the future. Sacredly preserving whatever has been 
gained to liberty and good government, during the century, 
our people are determined to leave behind them all those 
bitter contentions concerning things which have been irrevo- 
cably settled, and the further discussion of which can only stir 
up strife and delay the onward march," then, forgetful of 
the great concourse, turning reverently to kiss that grand 
mother and devoted wife, under the gaze of the American 
people. 

Who sneers at it now as sentimental? It was the man. 
Grander spectacle Nation never looked upon. 

I see him upon his bed during the long agony of his 
martyrdom, and no word of complaint or purpose of re- 
venge passes his calm lips. There he lies, the wonder and 
admiration of all nations, the hero of the world. I see him 
as he gasps, "O Swaim! what a terrible pain! Can't you 
do something for me?" And the pulse flutters and the 
breath grows faint. The light flickers and goes out, and 
tlie heroic woman strokes the nerveless arm of her dead. 
Aye! roll your surges, ocean, in ceaseless moaning for our 



TRUE TO HIMSELF— FALSE TO NONE. 165 

hero. Hide your faces, stars of heaven, and let the earth 
be shrouded in darkness. Sweep your sable pinions across 
the sky, O clouds, and let not the sun look upon our be- 
loved. And, men of every land, ring out the iron bells in 
peals of woe. Drape your houses and let your hearts be 
sad, for the friend of man is dead. Autumn shall wither 
the leaves, and winter shall hide the earth with snow as 
with, a garment. Spring shall come again and wear her 
crown of verdure; and summer shall adorn the earth with 
flowers, and with the kindly fruit of the fields. Men shall 
sow the seed and reap the harvest; kingdoms shall fall and 
empires shall spring up, and all things ripen towards the 
end, but the gentle, courageous, humble, kingly man shall 
come back to us no more forever. 

And now they lay him at rest in that beautiful spot by 
the blue waters of the lake upon which he gazed in boy- 
hood. Cannon thunder a last tribute, and all that is mor- 
tal of James A. Garfield waits beneath the sod for the 
trumpet of the last day. 

His death has brought sorrow to mankind, rest to a hero, 
duty to a nation. The standards he set we must never 
lower. We must see to it that Guiteau writes no page of 
American history. It is left for us to cherish the hero's 
memory and hand it down to the generations which shall 
come after us, as a dear possession for aye, to explore his 
character and reproduce it in our children, that when the 
stranger shall ask, "Where is his monument?" we may re- 
ply, "The Nation is his memorial;" to reap the fruit of 
his labors, garnered in our institutions and in our laws, 
and to write above all, "in letters of living light," "(tod 
reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives.*" 



THE HOUSEHOLD STORY. 



By Chancey M. Dkpew. 



Delivered at the Memorial Service of the Grand Anny of the Republic, 

New York, Sept. 26, 1881. 

"We have met together many times in the long years past 
on occasions, serious and trifling, sad and joyful; for the 
hot discussions of politics, for the purpose of commemorat- 
ing historical and patriotic events, and to strew with flowers 
and eulogiuras, the graves of our heroic dead ; but never 
before have we assembled when we were only the units of 
universal and all-embracing grief. The sun, in its course, 
has for the past two months greeted with its morning rays, 
a never-ending succession of kneeling millions, supplicating 
the heavenly throne to spare the life of General Garfield ; 
and, during the last forty-eight hours, it has set upon them, 
bowed in sorrow for his death. 

This intense interest has been limited by neither bounda- 
ries nor nationalities. It has belted the globe with mourn- 
ing. Why has this calamity touclied the chords of univer- 
sal sympathy? Heroes and statesmen have died before, but 
never before have all civilized peoples felt the loss their 
own. The glory of the battle-field has mingled exultation 
with the soldier's agony. Statesmen have closed a long and 
distiTiguished career, but the loss has been relieved by the 
reflection that such is the common lot of all. Lincoln's 
murder was recognized as the expiring stroke of a dying 
cause. The assassination of him who was the savior of 

(166) 



THE HOUSEHOLD STORY. 167 

Holland, and the hope of the liberty of his time, was felt 
to be the fruit of implacable feud and religious strife; but 
the shot at Garlield was the most causeless, purposeless and 
wicked crime of the century. No section, no party, no 
faction, desired his death. It had no accessories in public 
vengeance or private malice. 

The President was a strong, brave, pure man, in the prime 
of his power; the trusted Executive of fifty millions of 
people; the title to his oflSce unquestioned; and the Nation 
unanimous in the purpose that he should develop his policy 
and fulfill his mission. Such a life and career, so ruthless- 
ly broken, arouse horror and sympathy. 

But the love, reverence and sadness of this hour are due 
to the fact that the man himself, in his strength and weak- 
ness, in his struggles and triumphs, in his friendships and 
enmities, in his relations to mother, wife and children, and 
in his battle with death, was the best type of manhood. 
He was not one of those historical heroes, with the human 
element so far eliminated that, while we admire the char- 
acter, we rejoice that it exists only in books and on canvas; 
but a man like ourselves, with like passions and feelings, 
but possessed of such greatness and goodness, that the 
higher we estimated him the nearer and dearer he became 
to us. In America and Europe he is recognized as an illus- 
trious example of the results of free institutions. His 
career shows what can be accomplished where all avenues 
are open, and exertion is untrammeled. 

Our annals afford no such incentive to youth as does his 
life; and it will become one of the Republic's household 
stories. No boy, in poverty almost hopeless, thirsting for 
knowledge, meets an obstacle which Garfield did not expe- 
rience and overcome. No youth, despairing in darkness, 
feels a gloom wnich he did not dispel. 

No young man filled with honorable ambition can en- 
counter a difiiculty which he did not meet and surmount. 



168 THE HOUSEHOLD STORY. 

Por centuries to come great men will trace their rise from 
humble origins to the inspirations of that lad, who learned 
to read by the light of a pine-knot in a log cabin; whoj 
ragged and barefooted, trndged along tlie tow-path of the 
canal; and, without ancestry behind to impel him forward, 
without money or affluent relations, without friends or 
assistance, by faith in himself and in God, became the 
most scholarly and best-equipped statesman of his time — 
one of the foremost soldiers of his country, the best debater 
in the strongest of deliberate bodies, the leader of his party 
and the Chief Magisrate of fifty millions of people before 
he was fift}' years of age. 

We are not here to question the ways of Providence. 
Our prayers were not answered as we desired, though the 
volume and fervor of our importunity seemed resistless; 
but already, behind the partially-lifted veil, we see the fruits 
of the sacrifice. Old wounds are healed and fierce feuds 
forgotten. Yengeance and passion, which have survived the 
best statesmanship of twenty years, are dispelled by a com- 
mon sorrow. Love follows sympathy. Over this open grave 
the cypress and willow are indissolubly entwined, and into it 
are buried sectional diflferences and hatreds. The North and 
the South rise from bended knees to embrace in the brother- 
hood of a common people and reunited country. Not this 
alone, but the humanity of the civilized world has been 
quickened and elevated, and the English-speaking people 
are nearer to-day in peace and unity than ever before. 

There is no language in which petitions have not arisen 
for Garfield's life, and no clime where tears have not fallen 
for his death. The Queen of the proudest of nations, for 
the first time in our recollection, brushes aside the formal- 
ities of diplomacy, and descending from the throne, speaks 
for her own and the hearts of all her people, in the cable 
to the afflicted wife, which says: "Myself and my children 
mourn with you." 



A MAN OF THE PEOPLE. 



By Rev. T. K. Noble— Department Chaplain of the Grand Army of 
the Republic. 

Delivered In San Francisco, at the Memorial Service of the Grand Army of th» 

Republic, Sept. 25, 1881. 

" Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen? "-I1 Samuel, 3:38. 

As I stand in your presence to-nigbt, my comrades, there 
rises before me a Dantean picture of the touching scene it 
was my lot to witness in the general hospital of the Army 
of the Potomac on that awful day when the news reached 
us that our beloved Lincoln had been foully murdered. 
Only seven days before, it had been the privilege of those 
thousands of maimed and sick soldiers to look into his 
rugged but kindly face and feel the hearty pressure of his 
honest hand, and when the tidings came that he had been 
shot down like a dog, those bronzed and war- hardened vet- 
erans, raged like madmen, and then cried like children. 
This picture, dark as it is, has been duplicated, and in a 
period of profound peace. Despite a nation's wrath and a 
nation's woe, in less than a score of years, we are again 
smitten by a common blow, and bowed by a common grief. 
A dutiful son, a devoted husband, a revered father, a ripe 
scholar, a pure patriot, a sagacious statesman and a godly 
ruler has succumbed at last, after seventy-nine days of 
patient suffering to the bullet of the assassin, and strong 
men ao-ain have been crying in our streets. The Nation has 

(169) 



170 A MAN OF THE PEOPLE. 

lost its head, the people their President, and we of the 
Grand Army a comrade, honored and beloved. To use the 
words which Shakespeare puts in the mouth of Macbeth : 

r"this Duncan 



Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 
So clear in his great office, that his virtues 
Will plead like angels, tnimpet-tongued, against 
The deep damnation of his taking oS." 

HIS NOBLE LIFE. 

But we are in God's house to-night, not to ^ive ntteranco 
to useless invective, or expression to unavailing sorrow. 
The hour can be better spent in meditating upon his noble 
life and its inspiring lessons. And so I reiterate this old 
question of Holy Writ, "Know ye not that there is a prince 
and a great man fallen ? " If we will rise to some juat concep- 
tion of his greatness, we must weigh his record as a man, a 
patriot, a statesman and a Christian ruler. Look, first of all, 
at his greatness as a man, a man among men, and a man of 
the common people. Born in a rude log cabin, a true son 
of the soil, his father a farmer, his elder brother a farmer, 
and his two sisters the wives of farmers, his superb phys- 
ique inherited from robust ancestors, was magnificently 
developed by hard labor in the open air and at the work- 
bench of the carpenter's shop. 

Who that has ever looked upon him will ever forget his 
manly presence ? The tall, but well rounded frame, the 
broad shoulders, the massive head, the full face, the clear 
blue eye, the kindly look, the affable and friendly ways, all 
these " bespoke elements so mixed in him tiiat nature might 
stand up and say to all the world, this was a man !" Not 
a man of lead, heavy, dull, cold and unelastic ; nor a man 
of iron, stern, hard, implacable and unattractive, but a man 
of steel, firm, but at the same time flexible, tenacious, but 
also tractile, and with all his powers and faculties so tem- 
pered and refined that whatever position in life he was 



A MAN OF THE PEOPLE. 171 

called to fill, he always rose equal to the demands of the hour. 
Whether as a toiler upon the farm of his father, or as a 
driver of horses upon the canal, or as a teacher in our public 
schools, or as President of a Collef^e,or as a preacher of the 
Gospel of Peace, or as a General on the field of war, or as a 
Pepresentative in the halls of Congress, or as President of 
fifty millions of people, by his ability, versatility and fidel- 
ity he has won imperishable honor as the fairest and finest 
representative of American manhood. 

The speaker then proceeded to review at length President 
Garfield's greatness as a patriot and a statesman — calling 
public attention to the larger service rendered by him while 
a member of Congress, and to the wisdom, firmness and 
high manliness displayed by him during his brief occupancy 

of the Presidential chair. 

• 

THE president's RELIGION. 

He then said: I should be recreant to my duty as a 
Christian minister, did I not, on this memorial occasion, 
direct your thoughts to our dead comrade's beautiful loy- 
alty to God, as well as to his large services to men, Never 
let it be forgotten that this noble life, which bore such 
blessed fruit, was rooted in Christian soil. It was Chris- 
tian blood that flowed in his veins. It was a Christian 
mother that bore him. It was a Christian wife that minis- 
tered to him. It was a Christian home that sheltered him, 
and it was a Christian church of which he was a faithful 
and consistent member. His Bible was the Christian's 
Bible, and his God the Christian's God, and no day passed 
in which he did not, with bowed head, invoke the Divine 
blessing upon his home and upon the dear country of his 
life. 

Even in his youth, while camping out with a few chosen 
companions, before the fire dies down, he takes from his 
pocket a well-worn Bible, reads a chapter aloud, and then, 



172 A MAN OF THE PEOPLE. 

kneeling under tlie solemn stars, reverently commends him- 
self and his young friends to the God of his fathers. It was 
this spirit of whole-souled loyalty to God that made our 
dead President so grandly great — great in peace, great in 
war, great in the sick chainber, and great in the presence 
of death. For, as Carlyle has said, " The chief question to 
be asked of a man or of a nation is, What was their re- 
ligion ?" Answering this question, he adds, "Give us the 
soul of their history, for the thoughts they had were the 
parents of the actions they did, and their feelings were the 
parents of their thoughts, and it is the interior and spirit- 
ual that determines the outward and actual." 

I repeat it, my comrades, it was our dead President's 
stanch loyalty to God, that made him so truly great. This 
it was that imparted to his soul that lofty courage, that se- 
rene and beautiful equipoise of spirit, that is, the admira- 
tion of the world. " It will strike hard," he said to his col- 
lege classmates, at the time of his inauguration. "It will 
strike hard, this mountain wave of political animosity,'* 
but he was anchored to his God, and in his soul there was 
peace. How hard it did strike, only the lips of his brave 
and bereaved wife can fully tell, and the unwritten history 
of those awful weeks of suffering adequately disclose. But 
he bore it with such knightly fortitude, such Christian pa- 
tience, such unmurmuring submission to the will of the 
God he trusted, that it has touched the great heart of human- 
ity in every quarter of the habitable globe. And, therefore 
to-night, as he lies in the repose of death, his worn, white face 
turned upward to those calm heights where sin and sor- 
row and paiu are never known, "where the wicked cease 
from troubling, and the weary are at rest," all Christen- 
dom is mourning him. High and low, rich and poor, 
learned and unlearned, are bowing in the brotherhood of a 
common bereavement. It is our sorrowful privilege, my 



A MAN OF THE PEOPLE. 173 

comrades, to honor liim, not only as a man and a magis- 
trate, but as a brotlier beloved — a faithful member of the 
Grand Army of the Republic. 

And so, in the quiet of this holy Sabbath evening, we, 
the shattered remnants of this great fraternity, have come 
together to break the alabaster box of our honest affection 
over our dead comrade, and to anoint him for his buriaL 
" He has fought a good figiit, he has finisiied liis course, he 
has kept the faith." lie has entered into the joy of his 
Lord. In company with our revered Washington, and our 
martyred Lincoln, sacred triumvirate of noble souls, he will 
live forever in the hearts of tlie American people, as a man 
without guile, a patriot without selfishness, a statesman 
without corruption, and a President without fear. 

THE LESSONS OF HIS LIFE. 

And now, what are the lessons which ought to be drawn 
from our dead comrade's shining career? Among the many 
which press hard for recognition I name but three: First 
of all, are we not admonished afresh of the inherent excel- 
lence of the American ideas and institutions which made 
possible the character and career of James A. Garlield? In 
what other land upon the face of the earth do we behold an 
open higliway, leading from the rude cabin of a pioneer 
farmer up to the Executive Mansion of a mighty nation? 
Where but in America do we see all the supreme prizes of 
life actually within the reach of the poorest and humblest? 
Where but in this dear land of our fathers do we find a free 
government, and a free church, and a free press, and free 
gpeech, and free schools? 1 know it is the fashion of the 
times to speak lightly of these prerogatives of the Ameri- 
can people, and I do not forget that they have been abused, 
like other good things of earth. 

But men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of 



174 A MAN OF THE PEOPLE. 

thistles. And when I look upon the grand outcome of these 
ideas and institutions, as exhibited by our dead President, 
and also, I may add, by his predecessors in the high office, 
I discern new significance in these old ideas which our 
fathers died to establish, and their sons to maintain, and I 
find myself saying, in the strong language of Israel's King, 
"If I forget thee, oh, my country, let my right hand forget 
its cunning, and let my tongue cleave to the roof of my 
month." 

The second lesson of our comrade's noble life — what is 
it but this: the inexpressible importanc to our dear country 
of Christian homes — homes where the husband loves the 
wife as Christ the Church, and the wife reverences the hus- 
band with the sweet reverence of love; homes where child- 
ren are taught to obey their parents " In the Lord, because 
it is right;" homes in which, as the shadows of evening 
fall, the household are gathered together, the word of Life 
is read, and the priest, the husband and father prays. If 
it were possible for the spirit of our departed President to 
speak to us to-night, I believe his message would be that 
America's supreme need is Christian homes like that in 
which his own young life ripened into such symmetrical 
and beautiful completeness. 

And now, as we go forth into the world, let us take with 
us also the other inspiring lesson— the ever- increasing use- 
fulness and the ever-widening influence of a genuinely 
unselfish and consecrated life. I open the Word of God, in 
which I am certain to find the very heart of truth, and I 
' there read that " the path of the just is as a shining light, 
which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." How 
impressively is this truth illustrated in the life of our Presi- 
dent ! Beginning as a feeble rush-light, in a cabin in the 
West, it ffrew brighter and brighter as the years went by, 
illuminating successively the common school, the college, 



A MAN OF THE PEOPLE. 175 

the field of battle, the halls of Congress, and the capitol of 
the Nation, sending its clear and steady beams over the 
whole land, and so lettinij this light shine, that men every- 
where seeing the good works are glorifying their Father in 
heaven. And now, that the thin shade of the earthly tab- 
ernacle is at last dissolved, is not the pure spirit shining 
with a brightness and beauty and chastened radiance that 
belongs not to earth but to heaven? Faithful over a few 
things, he is made ruler over many things, and his blessed 
life is filling the whole world with fragrance. Oh, comrades 
and friends, is not the voice of our fallen leader speaking 
to us in this still hour, and saying to us calmly and 
solemnly, " Follow me ever aa I have followed my great 
Master, Christ 1 " 



A LIFE THAT SHINES. 



By Rby. James Freeman Clarkb, D.D. 



Delivered In the Charch of the Disciples, Boston, Memorial Sunday, Sept 25, 1881. 

" But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and,more untc 
the perfect day."— Proverb 4: 18. 

The lon^ trial is over; the great suspense is at an end, 
and our whole-souled and loved Cliief has gone from us. 
The civilized world which has watched every fluctuation of 
the sick raan.'s pulse, counted every throh, and asked anx- 
iously every day for his welfare, turns sadly hack to its 
usual avocations. Another name is written among the 
noble army of martyrs; another hero lias been enrolled on 
the list of those whom this people reverences. Henceforth 
the memory of Gariield will stand side by side with thoce 
of Washington and Lincoln as one of the heroes of the 
Nation. All minds and hearts throughout the world are 
moved simultaneously by one sorrow and one sympathy 
The mourning widow has condolence and sympathy from 
all the nations of the world, and has stood by his side faith- 
fully. If her husband had remained a simple teacher in an 
Ohio academy she would have done no less; she could have 
done no more. 

There is something wonderful and almost inexplicable in 
this expression of world-wide sorrow. In imagination we 
see the funeral There is the casket surrounded by the 

(176) 



A LIFE THAT SHINES. 17T 

pall-bearers, who are all his old boyhood friends. Mrs. 
Garfield passed over the distinguished gentlemen who 
would gladly have occupied these positions, and wisely 
chose those who knew him earliest. After them follow the 
wife, the mother and children, the faithful friends, th& 
members of the Cabinet and the Governors of States; 
then there are present by their expressions of sincere sor- 
row, the Queen of England, and the Empress of India, the 
President of the great French Eepublic, the Kings of Italy 
and Belgium, the Parliament of Australia; crowded pub- 
lic meetings in every city and town in England send also 
their representatives. All these we see in our minds fol- 
lowing lovingly and reverently the body of this man, wha 
liad no prestige except that which he won by his own - 
worth. The world is better for^uch a scene as this; it is 
noble to see that in such an hour 

"One throb of nature makes the whole world kin." 

"We see that the world is not so bad as it is represented 
to be, when such a wave of feeling sweeps over it, bearing 
all classes of men to one common point of meeting. Why 
is it? The assassination of the Czar, the ruler of a mighty 
empire, created no such feeling. The long weeks of sick- 
ness, of watching with untiring interest, may have some- 
thing to do with it, but not all. He was a patient sufierer, 
but 80 were others. The assassination of Lincoln excited 
the passion of grief, but this universal sorrowing has a pro- 
founder source. It has been argued that the people of 
this Nation can have no feeling ot loyalty toward a govern- 
ment represented by a man chosen from among themselves 
and placed at their head by their own votes. It is not the 
man to whom they are loyal, but his position. The place 
where he stands is their ideal position, and the divinity 
which hedges it round is not his personal character, but the 
divinity of the position which he fills. Whatever is good,. 
12 



178 A LIFE THAT SHINES. 

grand and beautiful in the institutions of our country is 
represented by him, and if he leads a good and pure life, 
devoted to the interests of the country, then he is beloved 
and reverenced with a love greater than that of any other 
country. Such was he — our martyred chief. Other na- 
tions are moved by the sight of this upright man, who 
stands as the embodiment of the great hopes and future of 
this mighty republic. Whetlier or not this be the explana- 
tion, it is certain that this is a remarkable hour in the his- 
tory of the Nation, and he has done more for us by his 
death than he would by living. 

His death has extinguished the feeling between the 
North and South and made them one; it has stilled all 
animosity against him. We are rejoiced to see that the 
Republican and Democratic papers which opposed the pol- 
icy and found fault with the administration of Garfield 
are acknowledging their mistakes openly; it is a mark of 
strength and not of weakness. If his death shall elevate 
the tone of political discussion, it will not have been in 
vain. It has helped to make mankind one. Every noble 
life which thrills the world with a common feeling tends 
to unite it, and goes far in the same direction with the 
atonement of Christ. The blood of Lincoln brought men, 
before estranged, nearer to each other; the blood of Gar- 
field has united the North and South and brought the 
great spheres nearer together. 

But we must carry this sentiment forward toward con- 
viction. The principle for which Garfield died was that of 
truth. These funeral processions, mourning emblems and 
eulogies are all right and proper as far as they go, but we 
must not stop there in our tribute. The best monument 
which we can raise to his memory is to carry on the ideas 
and principles to which he was a martyr. It may be urged 
that the assassin was crazy, but his brain was filled with the 



A LIFE THAT SHINES. 179 

notions of the spoils system, and it was in opposing that 
system that Garfield died. And now a man who has been 
known in the past as a supporter of that system has taken 
his place. "We must not prejudge him. We can only 
hope that he has experienced a change of heart; but what- 
ever he does, the people must not relax their vigilance; 
they must kill the spoils system. Hang the assassin if 
they will, but do n't stop there. A system well organized 
and well carried out for the reform of the civil service will 
be the best monument which can be erected to the memory 
of Garfield. 

It is not a bad thing to die when death produces such re- 
sults as these. Garfield was happy in his life, in his home, in 
his mother, in his wife, his church, his love for knowledge, 
his wise instructors; he was happy, too, in having the cour- 
age to leave these blessings to fight for his country; he was 
happy in his good sense, his sweet temper, his sound prin- 
ciples; but he was especially happy in the opportunity for 
death, when he had gained all and lost nothing. His life 
was bright and without a spot; his death was opportune 
and fortunate, since he has united the world in one great 
sentiment of pity and reverence. When such a man dies, 
it is not death, but a new life. 



THE IMMORTAL NAME. 



Bt Judge John P. Rka. 



Dellrered at the Memorial Services In Minneapolis, Minn., Sept. 26, 18S1. 

Ju8T one week ago, way down by the sea, the wild waves 
of the mighty deep moaning tlieir sad requiem in his ears, 
the grandest soul among men took its flight from earth to 
heaven. 

This afternoon the body which that soul animated, enno- 
bled and endeared for half a century, was laid to rest on 
the sloping shores that were his home by the lake he loved. 
Its restless murmuring waters are singing now as they 
will continue in calm or storm to sing forever, nature's 
anthem to his memory. In that little mound looking out 
upon that inland sea, he sleeps. There angel sentinels be- 
gin to-night their ageless watch above him. There by his 
faith, which is ours, we know that he will come forth in 
glory when the reveille of eternity sounds the dawn of im- 
mortality's morning. 

I came not here to tell what James A. Garfield did, 
the world knows that by heart. I came not here to mag- 
nify his merits, or attempt by feeble words to burnish the 
dazzling lustre of his memory, but simply to la}'- a humble 
tribute from the heart upon his fresh made grave, and min- 
gle a tear with those who weep that he is gone. 

(180) 



THE IMMORTAL NAME. 181 

How feeble are words to express the emotions of the 
heart when stirred to the depth by the aggressive force of 
an overwhelming sorrow! 

What pen can portray the anguish of a soul smitten by 
the hand of death? What language can convey from mind 
to mind, in all its acuteness, the grief that revels at this 
hour in the bosom of every American? 

What heart here but feels upon its plastic walls the 
ruthless print of an iron hand? What ear but hears in the 
oppressive air about it the rustling of the black wingsl 
What soul but feels the chilling presence of the inexorable 
angel of death? Upon what a scene in the world's drama 
the curtain falls to-day ! Across the land draped in pall 
moves the funeral cortege of America's murdered President. 
In its trains are fifty million broken-hearted mourners. 
Chivalric soldiers who crossed with him in the fiercest con 
flict of the centuries are there. Proud men whom he met 
and conquered in the bitter contests of the political arena 
are there. Humble blacl^ men whom he helped to lift from 
bondage to manhood are there. The rich and the poor, the 
old and the young, the high and the low, the great and the 
humble, all are there, and all — all are weeping. All are 
moved by a common love and stricken by a common sor- 
row. Children strew flowers beneath the wheels of the car 
that bears the dead. The nations stand with bowed heads 
in silent sadness while the mighty procession passes, bear- 
ino- to its tomb the lifeless form of him in whom was cen- 
tered the tenderest love of the republic and the fondest hope 
of the world. The proudest Queen of Christendom wipes 
the tear from her cheek as she lays her floral tribute upon 
his bier, and millions of peasants in humble cots on moun- 
tain and lowland beyond the sea feel the gloom of an equal 
sadness and the touch of as tender a love. Eyes unused to 



182 THE IMMORTAL NAME. 

weep are moistened. All humanity is in tears — tlirough 
them its great, warm heart is breaking. 

" Aye, turn and weep : 'tis manliness 
To be heart-broken here, 
For the grave of earth's best noblenen 
Is watered by the tear." 

"We mourn not so much the loss of the ruler, as the death 
of the man. Looking through our tears upon his matchless 
career, the lustre of his triumphs as he carves his way from 
the cabin to the White House, dims by contrast with the 
golden glory that floods for months the chamber of patient 
suffering, of unselfish devotion, of conquered agony, where 
were revealed the immeasurable possibility of man's virtue 
and the unfathomable depths of woman's love. Oh ! with 
what a delicate tenderness humanity will treasure away in 
the store-house of its memory the sacred incidents of loving 
self-denial and sublime fortitude that sparkle forth like 
heavenly gems through the black clouds of misery which 
envelop that scene. James A. Garfield won his way by 
no art but the true one of meriting honors. He commanded 
power by demonstrating his fitness for it. In its exercise 
he honors his country and his kind. 

" And to add greater honors to his age 
Than man coiild give, he died fearing God." 

Barefooted orphan boy, delving in intellectual mines for 
the treasures of power; young teacher of the living truths 
that flash down the centuries from the martyr-crowned 
crest of Calvary; heroic soldier of freedom, snatching the 
inspiration of victory from the gloom of defeat, riding, 
king of the battle-storm, amid the death-revel that reigned 
supreme in the tangled fens of the Chickamauga; bold^ 
honest, intelligent legislator, at the peril of popular dis- 
pleasure, yielding obedience to the slightest commands of 
honor, teaching thy countrymen that " Aloft on the throne 



THE IMMORTAL NAME. 183 

of God, and not below in the footprints of a trampling 
multitude, are the sacred rules of right, which no majori- 
ties can displace or overturn." 

Chosen Chief Magistrate of the first republic of the world, 
standing on the sunlit portals of its capitol, in the full flush 
of new-born power, bending to imprint the kiss of filial love 
on the shrunken, shriveled cheek of the old mother — show- 
ino- that true love has no season and no station; champion 
of liberty and law; lover of country and man; exemplar of 
virtue; teacher above all others of the limitless possibilities 
of rectitude and courage; incomparable President, faithful 
husband', tender father, loving son: Thy name shall be a 
household word to millions whose existence lies in the 
dreamy realms of the unborn centuries. "We mourn thy 
tragic end ! We behold with pride, the rising superstruc- 
ture of the mighty fabric of thy fame. We cannot tell 
" thy doom without a sigh," and yet we know that 

"Thou art Freedom's now and Fame's. 
One of the few immortal names 
That were not bom to die." 



THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEAD. 



By Senator Voorhees. 



Delivered In the Opera House, Terre Haute, Indiana, Sept. 21, 188t 

Mr. Mayor and Fellow-citizens: — I cannot remain 
«ilent on such an occasion as this. 

All that is mortal of him, who a few hours a^o was the 
living head of the most powerful government on the globe, 
mow lies cold and still in death. The sounds and em- 
blems of mourning are encircling the earth to-day. 
Throughout the boundaries ot the Republic, the bells are 
tolling for the illustrious dead, and following the track of 
the sun, wherever the dread intelligence finds the Ameri- 
"Can flag, whether on the stately squadron, or coasting 
echooner ; whether over the proud embassy, or the hum- 
ble consulate, there it will droop at half-mast, and its bril- 
liant folds will be shadowed in crape. And with Ameri- 
can sorrow will be mingled the sorrow of the whole civi- 
lized world. Every nation will be a mourner at this sad- 
dest of all funerals in American history. 

The President of the United States died in public, with 
the world looking on from hour to hour, counting his pulse- 
beats and bis breathings, and in all the long tragedy he 
faced death so well, bore himself so manfully, without mur- 
mur of complaint, or word of vengeance, that civilized na- 

(184) 



THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEAD. 185 

tions of every clime and kindred will stand uncovered as 
his funeral train carries him back to his beloved Western 
home. 

Sir, I knew James A. Garfield well, and except on the 
political field, we had strong sympathies together. It is 
nearly eighteen years since we first met, and during that 
period I had the honor to serve seven 3'ears in the House 
of Representatives with him. I have been asked, in this 
hour of universal grief, to place some estimate upon his 
character. The kindness of his nature, and his mental ac- 
tivity, were his leading traits. In all his intercourse with 
men, women and children, no kinder heart ever beat in hu- 
man breast than that which struggled on until half-past ten 
o'clock Monday night, and then forever stood still. There 
was a light in his face, a chord in his voice, and a pressure 
in his hand, which were full of love for his fellow beings. 
His manners were ardent and demonstrative with those to 
whom he was attached, and he filled the private circle with 
sunlight and with magnetic currents. He had the joj'^ous 
spirits of boyhood, and the robust intellectuality of man- 
hood, more perfectly combined than any one I ever knew. 

Such a character was necessarily almost irresistible with 
those who knew him personally, and it accounts for that 
undying hold, which, under all circumstances bound his 
immediate constituents to him, as with hooks of steel. 
Such a nature, however, always has its dangers as well as 
its strength, and its blessings. The kind heart and the 
open hand never accompany a suspicious, distrustful mind. 
Designing men mark such a character for their own selfish 
uses, and General Garfield's faults, for he had faults, as he 
was human, sprang more from this circumstance, than 
from all others combined. He was prompt, and eager to 
respond to the wishes of those he esteemed his friends, 
whether inside or outside his own political party. 



186 THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEAD. 

That he made some mistakes in his long and busy career 
is but repeating the history of every generous and oblig- 
ing man who has lived and died in public life. They are 
not such, however, as are recorded in heaven, nor will they 
mar or weaken the love of his countrymen. The poor, 
laboring boy, the self-made man, the hopeful, buoyant 
soul in the face of all diflaculties and odds, constitute an 
example for the American youth which will never be lost 
nor grow dim. 

The estimate to be placed on the intellectual abilities of 
General Garfield, must be a very high one. Nature was 
bountiful to him, and his improvements were extensive and 
solid. He was an industrious, judicious student, and his 
rapidity of thought and activity of mind were at times 
amazing. He grasped a subject as quickly as any man who 
ever took part in the public affairs of the world. He had 
that fine mental courage which shrinks from no investiga- 
tion. His acquirements were consequently rich and vari- 
ous. If I might make a comparison, 1 would say that 
with the exception of Jefferson and John Quincy Adams, 
he was the most learned President, in what is written in 
books, in the whole range of American history. This, in 
my judgment, will be the rank assigned him in the histo- 
ries of the future. 

The Christian character of General Garfield cannot, with 
propriety, be omitted in a glance, however brief, at his re- 
markable career. Those who knew him best in the midst 
of his ambition and his worldly hopes, will not fail now 
at his tomb to bear their testimony to his faith in God, 
and his love for the teachings of the blessed Nazarene. 
Though upon the summit of human greatness, he avowed 
his Master's cause and accepted the kingdom of Heaven in 
the spirit of a child. His chamber of death adds one 
more conspicuous illustration of the serenity and peace 



• THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEAD. 187 

with wliicli a Christian meets his fate. As the earth with 
all its honors, its loves and its hopes receded ahd disap- 
peared, he was comforted bj sights and sounds which this 
world can neither give nor take away. 

It seems but yesterday that I saw him last, and parted 
from him, in all the glory of his physical, and mental man- 
hood. His eye was full of light, his tread elastic and strong, 
and the world lay bright before him. He talked freely of pub- 
lic men and public affairs. His resentments were like sparks 
from the flint. He cherished them not for a moment. Speak- 
ing of one whom he thought had wronged him, he said to me, 
that sooner or later he intended to pour coals of fire on his 
head by acts of kindness to some of his kindred. He did 
not live to do so, but the purpose of his heart has been 
placed to his credit in the book of eternal life. 

Sir, as to the public measures, and the recent vivid oc-' 
currences connected with his brief administration, I am 
not here now to speak. At other times, and in another 
forum, that task, may perhaps be required, but not on this 
occasion of grief and commemoration. 

General Garfield's career at the head of the Government 
was sad, stormy and tragic. He drank a bitter cup to its 
dreo-s. He realized, within his own party, in fullest meas- 
ure, the harsh reward of an honorable and successful ambi- 
tion. 

" He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find 

The loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow; 

He who surpasses or subdues mankind • 

Must look down on the hate of those below. 

Though high above the sun of glory glow. 
And far berieath the earth and ocean spread, 

Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow 
Contending tempests on his naked head, 
And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.' 

But at last he has found rest and peace, the rest and 
peace of eternity to a Christian soul. As President, loving 
husband and father, affectionate son, and faithful friend, 



18S THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEAD. 

he will walk this earth no more. Alas! how pathetic was 
his death. * At the high noon time of life, not quite fifty 
years of age, with a career already made, which would read 
like romance in any other country than this, and with a 
mission just before him in which he believed, and for 
which he longed to live, he fell by the hand of a wretch 
who had voted for him, and wanted some poor office in re- 
turn. And then the long struggle with slowly approach- 
ing, but certain death! Whose eye has not wept, as the 
brave man was spen during the last eighty dreadful days, 
fighting his last great battle, and fighting it in vain? Like 
the strong swimmer in the surf of the sea, striving for the 
shore, he sometimes seemed to be nearing a point of safety, 
but with each ebbing wave he was carried further out, un- 
til at last he was gone forever from our anxious gaze on 
that tide which breaks alone on the high shores of immor- 
tality. 

How gladly would a, million of lives have been ventured 
for his rescue ; but it could not be, and we bow our heads 
and our hearts in helpless submission. May God in his 
loving mercy have the bereaved, \^ife aq(j^ \^^, pj^lianed 
children in His holy keeping. 

I have no heart now to speak of the future administra- 
tion of the government. I have faith in the American 
people, and all will be well. They are a source of power 
and of safety within themselves, and they can be trusted 
that np harm shall happen to the Republic. He who takes 
the place, under the Constitution, of the dead President, 
has my profound sympathy, and he will have my earnest 
support in all his efibrts, to promote the welfare and glorj 
of our common and beloved country. 



AN UNPARALLELED SPECTACLK 



By Rev. G. H. Wells. 



DeUvered at the Memorial Services In Montreal, Canada, Sept. 26, 1881. In the pul- 
pit were Revs. Gavin Lang, Dr. Sullivan, Dr. Clarke, H. Johnston, Dr. Stevenson, 
J S Black and W. S. Barnes, On the platform In front of the pulpit were the 
Lord Bish p of Montreal, Revs. Dr. McVicar, Canon Baldwin, Dr. Ussher, Prof. 
Shaw, J. L. Forster, W. W. Jubb, A. B. Mackay, Prof. Conssirat, E. A. Stafford. - 
Mallory, J. Nichols, and others. 

My Friends:— We share a universal grief to-day. The 
American Nation bears its fallen President to his last rest- 
ing-place, and the whole race of man forgets its differences 
and becomes a brotherhood beside his grave. The world 
has never seen a spectacle like this. The lines of country 
and of race seem blotted out. 

It naturally reminds us of that former gloomy hour 
when, sixteen years ago, Lincoln fell by the assassin's hand. 
But there was difference of feeling then, both in his own 
and other lands. There is no division in opinion or emo- 
tion now. The world is one in condemnation of the deed 
and sorrow for his death. There have been many reasons 
for this fact. 

The growing intercourse and unity of men never so 
deeply felt before; the sympathy awakened by the Presi- 
dent's long suffering and his heroic fight for life, the perfect 
causelessness and madness of the crime have been large 
features in this grand result. But, quite beyond these 

(189) 



190 AN UNPARALLELED SPECTACLE. 

things, there has been, too, a feeling which deepened as the 
weeks went by, and fuller light was thrown upon the case, 
until it ripened to conviction at the last, that the patient 
sufferer was a remarkable man, one of earth's truly noble 
and worthy sons — a man, who, quite aside from his exalted 
place and his tragic fate, deserved the high esteem of men, 
and whose death would be a general and heavy loss. A 
distinct, and important element in the great grief, is a 
tribute paid to his distinguished character and marvelous 
career. Men feel that there is a prince and a great man 
fallen this day in Israel, and they mourn for him as for a 
master and beloved chief. And this belief is amply justified 
by all the facts. 

For some weeks past the world has been watching, and 
while they wondered at his gentleness and courage, they 
have searched his record in the past, and the more they 
have become acquainted with him the more have they ad- 
mired and approved. No life could be more closely scanned 
than his has been with the keen vision of partisan political 
feeling, as well as with the gentler eye of pity, and no life 
ever bore the ordeal better, or came forth with purer fame. 
A calm review and candid estimate would rank him high 
among the great, good men. Think for a moment of his 
course, from the birth in a little clearing among the forests 
on the wild frontier — the humble home, so poor it some- 
times lacked for necessary bread. His boyhood's hard and 
scantily rewarded toil, his small advantages of schools, and 
all the obstacles and hardships that hedged about his youth. 
Remember that he was a farm laborer, a wood chopper, a 
salt worker and a canal driver, in those days. And that, 
when yearning after something better for both heart and 
mind, he began a religious life, and entered on a course of 
study, he was compelled to struggle long and hard with 
poverty before he could attain the end. 



AN UNPARALLELED SPECTACLE. 191 

His generous brother, and his ahnost more than human 
mother, gave him $17 for his first term in the Academy, and 
he made it suffice by sleeping on the floor and cooking his 
own food. In the vacation he earned $25 by cutting 100 
cords of wood, to meet his next term's needs, and felt pas- 
sing rich because he could afford to board. In the Colle- 
giate Institute he did the work of janitor, and afterwards 
of tutor, as well as that of pupil, and gained a local fame 
as preacher and a speaker at political gatherings besides. 

After graduating at an Eastern college among the high- 
est in his class, he returned home to be a professor and soon 
President in the institution where he had been janitor six 
years before, and by his excellence in teaching lifted it at 
once to favor, and proved that he would become a great 
educator — the Arnold or the Taylor of the West, if he con- 
tinued in the work. His admirinor neighbors soon called 
him to public service, and he beg m his long political career 
in the Ohio Senate, of which he was the youngest member, 
as still later he was the youngest general in the army, and 
still later the youngest member of the National Congress. 

He " let no man despise his youth," but was at once 
acknowledged in all these places as standing in the foremost 
rank. In the war he was an able and successful general, he 
was repeatedly promoted for gallantry, and eminent services, 
and might have risen to still higher place and won the 
name of a great commander had not his friends elected him 
to Congress, and President Lincoln urged that he could 
serve his country better in Washington than at the front. 
As member, first of the Committee of Military Affairs, 
where his experience in the army gave his counsels special 
worth, and, after the war, on the Committee of Ways and 
Means, which deals with the whole matter of revenue, and 
once more as Chairman of the Committee of Appropria- 
tions, which recommends and supervises the expenditures 



192 AN UNPARALLELED SPECTACLE. 

of Govern men t, at a time when the annual outlay reached 
the sum of $300,000,000, he served his country in putting 
down rebellion and in defending the national honor and 
good name. 

Last year, at the Chicago Convention, he led the delega- 
tion from his State, and urged the nomination of Secretary 
Sherman in a noble speech, and he continued loyal to his 
friend until all further strife was vaiti and he saw the 
choice of the convention was about to fall upon himself. 
Through the excited canvass that ensued he bore himself 
with dignity and delicacy that were as beautiful as they 
were rare. He never trumpeted his cause nor advocated 
his own claims, but retained his friendship with many in 
the opposing party, and kept the picture of the rival candi- 
didate hanging in his home throughout the whole cam- 
paign. 

As President, he took the seat that had been made illus- 
trious by Washington and Lincoln, and many other noble 
men, and has so tilled it during these few months as to in- 
vest it with new honors, and to make it still more famous 
in the time to come. But who can worthily describe his 
conduct through these weeks of weary agony, while trem- 
bling in the balance between hope and fear, and watching 
at the very gates of death? His heroism here has beauti- 
fully closed, and crowned his whole career. He has shown 
how a man may stand sustained in every sphere of public 
life; he has shown now how a man may die without a fear. 
My friends, the person who has done this and yet has died 
before the age of fifty years, is surely of no common clay 
or mould. He had been tested on every side and every- 
where found strong and true. "Weighed in many balances, 
he was not found wanting. 

Still more besides his active labors he found time for 
quiet study and research. He was a wide reader, a pro- 



AN UNPARALLELED SPECTACLE. 193 

« 
found thinker, an accomplished scholar. He loved best to 
grapple with the great questions that belong to the national 
welfare, and affect the universal good. He had mastered 
history of both ancient and modern times. He was deeply 
versed in literature, both classical and recent. He kept 
pace with the discoveries of the present, and was an mti- 
mate friend of such scientists as Agassiz and Henry. He 
was a largely gifted, a richly stored, a ripely cultured man, 
who would have honored any age, and graced the choicest 

fellowship of mind. 

And if we inquire for the finer moral qualities of heart, 
we shall find him still more rich in these. He was a sing- 
ularly just, upright, affectionate and simple-minded man. 
He never asked an ofiice or promotion in his life. Not that 
he lacked ambition, for he had as much of it as any great 
man should. He hoped that he might sometime be pre- 
pared to serve his country in high places-but others' esti- 
mate of him invariably outran his own, and before he was 
ready for it, honor came. When it was proposed to send 
him to the State Senate, he said: "If you elect me I will 
serve but it must be entirely without my assistance." He 
was nominated and chosen to Congress while absent m the 
army and without being consulted in the matter. W hen, 
after many years of service as a representative, he might 
have been elected to the Senate, remained at the request of 
President Hayes to be administration leader in the lower 
house. When he saw he was to be nominated at Chicago 
he said: "I feel as if my death-warrant had been signed ; 
I had thought I would like some time to be President, but 
I have jiist^been chosen to the Senate, and might hope for 
many happy, useful years of labor there, but as ex-Presi- 
dent I shall be shut out from public life." 

In his case, the man never sought the office, but that 
ideal of patriotic philosophy was found, in which the office 

13 



194 AN UNPARALLELED SPECTACLE. 

always sought the man. He sat in Congress for his na- 
tive district, the 19th of Ohio. It is a region in the north- 
eastern corner of the State, called the Western Reserve, or 
sometimes New Connecticut. It was settled largely by 
New England settlers, and has always been distingiflshed 
for high intelligence and moral worth. Joshua H. Gid- 
dings, one of the heroes of the anti-slavery conflict, had 
been its representative for tweuty-five years. Here Presi- 
dent Garfield had been born, and always had his home, 
most loved and trusted by his neighbors who knew him 
best, and here he will to-day be buried in the beautiful ceme- 
tery that overlooks the heaving lake. This district and its 
representative in Congress were mutually fond and proud of 
one another, but differences sometimes arose. 

Some years after the close of the war the greenback her- 
esy had risen, times were hard, and taxes heavy, and some 
even among the honest people of Ohio imagined that some 
easier method might be found. Garfield returned from 
Europe to find these opinions prevalent, and' when he was 
to speak at a reception tendered him, some of his friends 
urged him to say nothing on the subject, lest he might in- 
jure his chances in the nominating convention that was soon 
to meet. There was no special need for him to speak, but 
he would not keep silent, when silence might be miscon- 
strued, and he attacked the vital point at stake. He^aid: 
" My friends, much as I value your opinions, I here de- 
nounce this theory that has worked into this State, as dis- 
honest, unwise and unpatriotic; and, if 1 were offered a nom- 
ination and election for my natural life fVoui this district, on 
this platform, I should .-purn it. If you should ever raise 
the question of re-nominating me, let it be understood that 
you can have my services only on the ground of the honest 
payment of this debt and of these bonds in coin, according 
to the letter and spirit of the contract." 



AN UNPARALLELED SPECTACLE. igs 

Fortunately for themselves the. people could appreciate 
his courage, and when the convention met he was re-nomi- 
nated by acclamation. In one political address he said: 
^' I wish to adopt doctrines that will endure. I should like 
to hold a belief that will live longer than I shall live, and 
that my children after me might believe as true, and say, 
'this doctrine is true now, and it was true fifty years ago, 
when my father adopted it' " But after all, it was in pri- 
vate and domestic life that he was best. Not many men 
seem greatest to those most intimately acquainted with 
them, but one who knew the President well, has told me 
that he never seemed to him so truly great as when sitting 
by his own fireside and holding converse with his nearest 
friends. His power of friendship was remarkable. 

Histegard for President Hopkins" of "Williams' College, 
where he studied, a great man and a great inspirer of youth, 
was beautiful in the extreme. Once the subject of the im- 
portance of enlarging the library and the collections was 
discussed; when asked for his opinion, he said: "Gentlemen, 
books and cabinets are very good, but put me in a log cabin 
with only one rude bench, and seat Mark Hopkins on one 
end of it and let me sit upon the other, and that will be a 
college good enough for me." 

It is worth while to note the reasons that decided him to 
go East for an education, and to Williams rather than to 
some other college. It was naturally expected that if he 
wished for anything beyond the local schools, he would go 
to . Bethany College, an institution connected with the 
church of which he was a member, and which had for its 
presiding oflicer Alexander Campbell, the founder and 
leader of that sect. He thus explains his change of destin- 
ation in a letter to a friend : " There are three reasons why 
I have decided not to go to Bethany ; 



19« AN UNPARALLELED SPECTACLE. 

" Ist. The course of study is not so extensive or thorough 
as in Eastern colleges; 

"2nd. Bethany leans too heavily toward slavery; 

"3rd. I am the son of Disciple parents; am one myself and 
have had but little acquaintance with people of other views, 
and having always lived in the West, I think it will make 
me more liberal, both in my religious and my general views, 
to go into a new circle, where I shall be under new influen- 
ces." He then proceeds to say that he has written to the 
Presidents of three Eastern institutions, and has received 
similar replies, brief business notes from all, but adds, 
" President Hopkins concludes his letter with this sentence: 
' If you come here, we shall be glad to do what we can for 
you.' Other things being so nearly equal, this sentence, 
which seems like a friendly grasp of the hand, has settled 
the question for me. I shall start for Williams next week." 

Really this young man has got a very definite and just 
conception of his needs. He seeks for culture, liberality 
and freedom. He will not go where people lean toward 
slavery. To this thought he was consistent all his life. 

One day, while he commanded a division in the Army of 
the Cumberland, a fugitive slave took refuge in the camp. 
It was early in the war, when some supposed that a chief 
duty of the Union forces was to capture and restore the 
slaves that ran away. So the commanding officer wrote an 
order to General Garfield, requiring him to find the fugitive 
and hand him over to his owner. He took the order and 
deliberately wrote upon the back these words : — " I respect- 
fully but positively decline to allow my command to search 
for or deliver up any fugitive slaves; I consider that they 
are here for quite another purpose," and gave it to the 
orderly to carry back. A friend who saw the message 
expected him to be court-martialed on the spot, and begged 
him not to Beud it. He simply answered, " Right is right, 



AN UNPARALLELED SPECTACLE. 197 

and I will not mince matters. My people on the Western 
Keserve did not send my boys and myself down here to do 
that kind of work, and they will sustain me in my course." 
The refusal went to headquarters, but no reprimand was 
given, and nothing more was said about the case. 

That yearning, too, for sympathy that made a kindly word 
appear the welcome of a friendly hand. He never lost that 
feeling, nor did he forget to sympathize in turn with other 
young men in circumstances like his own. Some of his 
choicest memories were of his success in encouraging and 
bringing forward some who were distrustful of themselves, 
and of winning some parents to consent to the education of 
their sons. One such unwilling parent of an economical 
disposition,he persuaded by assuring him that in a little time 
his boy could teach and so earn money for himself. ^ An- 
other, of religious principles, he gained by preaching in his 
hearing a sermon on the Parable of the Talents, urging that 
parents were responsible for the development and culture 
of their sons. To a young man who was almost discour- 
aged and ready to give up the struggle for a college course, 
and who had asked him for advice, he wrote: "Brother, 
mind it is not a question to be discussed in the spirit of de- 
bate, but to be thought over, and prayed over, as a question 
out of which are the issues of life. " And then proceeded 
to comfort and inspire in words that must have sprung out 
of his own experience. The rule of thought and prayer 
which he here prescribes to others, he followed rigidly 
himself. 

On any matter that arose for settlement he sought the 
^uidanceof God's word and spirit. He was never ashamed 
of his religion, nor sought to put it out of sight. 

One night a party of Williams College students were 
camping out upon a neighboring mountain to see the sun- 
rise from the top. They sat beside a camp fire and spent 



198 AN UNPARALLELED SPECTACLE. 

the evening merrily in jest and song, until the hour for re- 
tiring came, wlien one of them drew a Bible from his pocket 
and said to his companions: " It is my habit to read a chap- 
ter and to pray before I go to bed. Will you not join me 
in this exercise to-night?" And so he read the sacred 
word and prayed with them upon the mountain top, and 
one who was a member of the group, and who described 
the scene, has lately said, " I never lost the influence of 
that hour." That student was James A. Garfield. He 
afterward confided to a friend that by a special arrangement 
with his mother they both read the same passage and prayed 
for one another every night. 

But who may venture to describe the reverent regard, 
the tender, chivalric attention he ever manifested for that 
mother? His devotion to his wife was beautiful, and it i? 
high encomium for him and her to say that they were per- 
fectly united, and wholly worthy of each other. But 
towards his mother he displayed a love that seemed almost 
to be a worship. He never knew a father's care, and all hi& 
strength of soul went out upon tlie mother who had filled 
the place of both his parents to him. We all have read 
how, upon the day of his inauguration as President, when 
he had finished his discourse, he turned to his mother and 
his wife and kissed them both, as if in this, the proudest 
moment of his life, when the applause of the great multi- 
tude was hailing him tlie nation's chief, he found his sweet- 
est pride and plaudits in their love. Most of us know that 
the only letter he wrote after he had received the fatal 
wound was a note to reassure and cheer his mother in her 
Ohio home, and have read those hopeful and courageous 
words. And he might well be a grateful and hopeful son, 
for in her character and the training that she gave wer© 
held, as in an acorn cup, his illustrious career. 

He was highly favored in his parentage on both hift 



AN UNPARALLELED SPECTACLE. 199 

fatlier's and his mother's side. His father's family were 
English yeomen from the Welsh borders, who came to 
America with the early Puritans, and who were always 
known as sturdy and God-fearing men. They were chiefly 
or entirely farmers — true sons and tillers of the soil. His 
piother's family were French Huguenots, driven from the 
country by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They 
were mostly preachers — men of great eloquence and intel- 
lectual power. And so the son inherited from the one side 
an admirable physique and perfect health, and from the 
other an instinct for study and for speech. English firm- 
ness and French fire, Saxon solidity and Celtic grace were 
blended finely in his frame. 

God sometimes forms a great man as he makes a dia- 
mond, of one element, and the person, like the jewel, is of 
wondrous brilliancy and worth; but generally, at least, in 
these days, he combines many elements and traits together, 
and so secures variety and versatility of mind. This was 
pre-eminently true in him of whom we speak. He was a 
high, yet worthy representative of the people and the in- 
stitutions of his native land. 

His country mourns for him as for her favorite and 
chosen son. But with her tears, is mingled gratified pride 
that her soil can produce such men. 

She thinks of Lincoln, of Garfield, her two murdered 
Presidents to-day, and like the Eoman mother, points to 
them as her most precious gems. And that aged, widowed 
mother, sits desolate, yet glorified to-day, and while she 
weeps, she also must rejoice. She gave him to his country 
more than 20 years ago. When he decided to enlist he 
told her of his wish, and asked for her consent. For a 
while she could not give it — the struggle was severe. He 
-ould not go without her God-speed to the war, and she 



800 AN UNPARALLELED SPECTACLE. 

could not grant it. At last she said, " Go, my son, your 
life belongs to your country, not to me." 

He has yielded his life, not upon the battle-field, but yet 
in his country's service and for her good. In her deep 
agony the mother to-day will rejoice that she pronounced 
those words. She will be glad that she had such a son to 
give and that she gave him for his country's good. 

I should naturally fail in the feelings of this hour if I did 
not add a few^words as the representative of ray country 
and countrymen. Gratitude we all feel toward all our fel- 
low-citizens for the outpouring of their sympathy in thig 
the hour of our distress. 

I never felt so deeply a love for all mankind as to-day. 
I never realized so much how many and how mighty are 
the cords that bind the Mother beyond the sea and the 
Daughter on this side, and how real are the common blood 
and the common sympathy. 

And on behalf of myself I must be permitted to say to- 
day, with new emphasis and feeling, God bless Her Majesty 
the Queen, and all the sons of her realm that show *****<»- 
selves our brethren and fellow-mourners at this hour. 



LESSONS FOR THE YOUNG. 

By Bishop Clarksok, of Iowa. 



Delivered at the Memorial Service, In Des Moines, Iowa, Sept. 26, 1881. 

It may be safely said that history nowhere presents rec- 
ords of such a scene as this day's sun looks down upon. 
Fifty millions of people in actual mourning for one man, 
and the whole wide world, from end to end, bowed and si- 
lent in responsive sympathy. 

Among all the wonders of history this honr's scene 
stands alone of its kind, and unapproachable in majesty 
and sublimity. Never has there been seen, heard or writ- 
ten of anything like it since the world began. Now, my 
friends, we take the position that all this remarkable con- 
dition of things that we see to-day on the American conti- 
nent is not to be accounted for, simply because the man 
whose death we lament was the President of the United 
States, and therefore the representative of a great nation. 
Nor yet because his terrible taking-off was associated with 
such a startling and shocking tragedy, and with such con- 
tinued and pitiable suffering, borne with a sublime hero- 
ism and a marvelous patience. 

These facts have, no doubt, contributed largely to inten- 
eify the nation's sorrow, to evoke the world's sympathy 
and to swell everywhere the melancholy pageantry of to- 

(201) 



202 LESSONS FOR THE YOUNG. 

day. But the real source of this unexampled exhibition of 
human grief lies deeper than all this. It is to be found in 
the universal and unchallenged estimate of the departed 
President's character, in the radiant beauty of his great and 
stainless life. From the fierce struggles of his lonely child- 
hood up through all grades—" student, teacher, soldier, 
statesman, president," there was ever the same grand pic- 
ture whose magnificent colorings were truthfulness, dili- 
gence, fidelity, purity, gentleness, unselfishness, dignity and 
clean-handedness. 

And upon this grand picture of human life there has 
been cast, as Tennyson says, the shinings of the utmost pos- 
sible daylight, and there it has ever stood and shall always 
stand, the same clear, unstained and wondrously beautiful 
and benignant. That is the reason why the uncounted 
thousands of the world's population stand to-day with un- 
covered heads and unspoken emotions, by the open grave 
that is to hide away from human sight so much greatness, 
so much goodness, so much loveliness, and so much true 
nobility. What an example to the young man here who 
feels that he has something in him that can lift itself above 
the mediocrity about him. 

The laurels that wreathe this man's splendid career, the 
tributes that cover his name with glory, the tears that are 
wept over his tragic fate, are holier triumphs far than ever 
crowned the common politician, the average statesman, or 
the successful soldier — because they are the triumphs of 
character. 

We hold up to you, young men, to-day, the inspiring name, 
James Abram Garfield. Not because he achieved success 
in gaining position and power, for this is not open to you ail, 
but because he achieved success in preserving a record 
undefiled by a shadow of meanness or littleness, in securing 
the aflfectionate admiration of all who ever touched him in 



LESSONS FOB THE YOUNG. 80B 

the manifold jostlings of life, and now in bringing upon his 
memory the benedictions of the ten times ten thousand who 
have been helped by his example upward to the right. 
This is the true victory of life. 

And this victory is in some degree attainable by every 
young man before me — each one in his own sphere, stand- 
ing, working and conquering in the lot where God has 
placed him. 

One thought more. The mournful death which we this 
day lament, associated as it is with such relations of sad- 
ness and distress as to attract the gaze and the sympathy 
of the world, is not utterly deplorable. There is a bright 
aide to it. Thank God there was among us — yes, even at 
our very head — such a man to live, yea, and such a man to 
die. 

We hold that the world is vastly better to-day; that our 
common "humanity has been lifted to a higher level; that 
our young men have been elevated in tone and purpose, be- 
cause we have been bending in anxious grief for eighty 
days over the death-bed of such a man, watching with 
prayerful hope the flickering pulse of his parting life, and 
because we are now in the sacredness of a holy sorrow, 
laying him away to his final resting place, amidst the people 
who loved him the most, because they knew him the best 
Life or death win equal honors for such a soul. Living, he 
was an inspiration. Suffering — we speak it reverently — 
he was Christ-like: for the sweet patience and the chastened 
resignation of that long agony was but the utterance of 
the sublime prayer, " Father forgive them, they know not 
what they do;" "and being dead he yet speaketh," and shaU 
forever speak to American youth. 

Sometimes the young man who is just entering upon his 
life's work, when he observes about him so mnch trickery 
in trade, bo much corruption in politics, so much sham in 



204 LESSONS FOR THE TOUNO. 

religion, or when he is oppressed by the thought of how 
long and hard the fight is to be before he gains his goal — 
or when he seems to see about him the temporary advan- 
tage the False and the Wrong, and the crowding into the cor- 
ner and the shade, the true and the good, he is tempted to 
lose faith in himself, faith in the right, faith in man and 
faith in the eternal realities. Oh, sad beginning this of 
many an immortal wreck. But I tell you, my young 
brother man, there is in this day's magnificent and mourn- 
ful spectacle, and in the thoughts born of it, that ought to 
charm you back from a danger like tliis. 

Here is first the spectacle of honest manhood, untiring 
labor, conscientious fidelity and incorruptible rectitude, 
crowned with this earth's highest civic honors, because of 
the Republic's confidence in these eternal virtues ; here ifl 
the generous allaying of all party strife and the marvelous 
calming down of all political animosities in the presence of 
pain and danger to the chosen one, wlio represents to the 
Republic's eye these great principles, and embodies them in 
his person and life— here is a mighty people bereaved in 
his death as by a personal loss, beyond any precedent in 
history, because he was such a man — here is the measure- 
less tide of human sympathy swelling towards the afflicted 
nation from all coasts and all shores, because he was such 
a man. 

I tell you young man, when you think of these things 
and what they sprung from, and what they lead to, yon 
may look above the struggles and the rivalries and the 
shams and the falsehoods around you ; these are calculated 
to tone down your hopefulness and enthusiasm and say to 
yourself, "I have still faith in man, faith in myself, faith 
in the Nation, faith in the future, faith in the eternal power 
of right, and above all, faith in the Everlasting God who 
rules and reigns above, because such a man as James Abram 



LINCOLN AND GARFIELD. 205 

Garfield has lived and died and conquered, has been deco- 
rated with the Kepublic's choicest appreciation, and goes to 
his grave to-day garlanded with all that is holy, and all 
that is tender and all that is precious, in human sorrow. 



LINCOLN AND GARFIELD. 

By Ex. Governor Richard J. Oglesby, of Illinois. 
DellTeied at the Memorial Service In Leadville, Colorado, September 28, 1B8L 

Mb. Mayok, Brother Soldiers, Men of the Navt 
AND Fellow-citizens : Wherever we turn our eyes we 
behold the signs and emblems of mourning, tokens of a 
nation's grief. 

This sad day, observed throughout the Union, is also 
appropriately kept amid these mountains by these people* 
who never forget what is due. on all great occasions like 
this, of love to a president who has been assassinated in this 
great Hepublic. 

It has been supposed tyrants were reserved for this crime. 
It is perhaps not admitting too much to say the world has 
felt relieved when known tyrants have been removed from 
the theatre of their bloody deeds. But what are we to 
think when we witness this crime in our own midst, in our 
day? Two men, great and good men, have fallen under our 
eyes, at our door, in the beauty and glory of perfect man- 
hood — in the maturity of rounded and perfect lives, inno- 



206 LINCOLN AND GARFIELD. 

» 
cent of any wrong-doing to any human being. The breasts 
of both were filled with humanity for all mankind. And 
if it be the hand of Providence, are we to be taught the 
hard lesson that republics are not favored of God? This is 
unendurable — this is manifestly untrue. If, then, it be the 
mysterious hand of Providence, are we to learn that no dis- 
tinction is taken between tyrants and the truly great bene- 
factors? or shall we not rather understand from this experi- 
ence — these great national bereavements — that this, regard- 
ing alike the law of God and man, assassination is the in- 
stigation and the work of cruel and abandoned men, who 
neither understand nor care for the .institutions of govern- 
ment or the lives of men? But if Providence is still dis- 
cernible in this heart-rending crime, may we not catch the 
sunlight of the holy purpose breaking through the dark 
cloud in the dawn of a more perfect and fraternal national 
sentiment. For have we not witnessed during this great 
calamity the most beautiful and touching manifestations of 
sympathy and sorrow from all political parties, and from 
all men and associations of men of all countries and all na- 
tionalities of the nations of tliis earth? 

But a few years ago Abraham Lincoln fell by the hand 
of an assassin — that great, God-like, sainted man, who illu- 
minated the whole earth by his illustrious character, and 
when he fell a dark suspicion also fell upon our Southern 
fellow citizens who had lately been arrayed against us. It 
was a long time that the South, I feel constrained as an 
honest man to say, sufiered under the suspicion of partici- 
pation in that national and cruel crime. 

Let me here to-day, in the most copious and open man- 
ner, declare as only a private American citizen can declare, 
that in my opinion and in the opinion of most of the living 
thoughtful men of the day, the South had nothing what- 
ever to do with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. 



LINCOLN AND GARFIELD. 337 

James A. Garfield has fallen. I fear a dark suspicion 
lurks in the mind of thoughtful women and thoughtful 
men, that perhaps agencies may have been at work, deep 
and direful, to bring about this awful result. I believe it 
due to the dignity of this occasion, I believe it due to the 
patriot, and to the trustworthiness of American political 
history, to say for one, and for only one, but still that one 
speaking from the high plateau of American citizenship, 
that political parties, however variant and however differ- 
ent in their opinion of their hostilities, have had nothing 
under God's heaven, under God's free, shining sun, either 
secretly or otherwise, with the foul agency that resulted in 
the death of our late President. 

These great facts, fellow-citizens of Leadville, these 
great, astonishing and terrifying historical facts, will live. 
History will astonish and mortify the W9rld long after you 
and I and these people shall have passed into the grave of 
oblivion. These terrible facts will endure as long as Ameri- 
can history shall endure, and let us, you and me, let the 
women and men to-day of this country and of this State 
contribute whatever we can in the way of truth, in the way 
of open and honest declaration, to divest that history of all 
foul and unnatural suspicion. But they fell — both of them 
fell, by the hands of wicked, cruel, individual, irresponsible 
men, and it is neither becoming the dignity of this occasion, 
the solemnities of this all-pervading day, nor your character, 
nor mine as an American citizen, that we should fritter away 
the dignity of the awful hour in unworthy and unbecoming 
imprecations upon the foul heads of the worthless men 
who brought these great disasters upon our God, our coun- 
try and our liberty. 

Of the miserable Guiteau, what does it concern you or 
me as to what his fate shall be? Whether he shall die as 
he ought to die, and a wronged and outraged sentiment be 



208 LINCOLN AND GARFIELD. 

avenged by a wronged and outraged people, or at the hand 
of some other assassin, or by the due process of law — it mat- 
ters not. His poor, worthless life, his poor, worthless char- 
acter, his poor, unworthy ending, can in no possible event 
be any compensation for the calamity he has brought upon 
the republican institutions. No, ladies ! no, no gentlemen! 
I will not spend an hour or a minute upon his fate ; it is 
totally unworthy of the notice, the reflection or the consid- 
eration of the humblest and most unpretentious individual 
within the reach and reverberation of my voice. God in 
heaven that rules to-day, as he has ever ruled, as you are 
taught by the lispings of the touching and eloquent prayer 
to which you have just listened, will see that not only the 
destiny of nations, but the destiny of republics among na- 
tions, shall be wisely and forever cared for. 

"Women and men of these mountainous regions, whom 1 
am from to-day learning to love so well-you women and men 
gathered from all the States and Territories of the nations 
of this world, in these isolated, remote and lofty regions do 
not forget your allegiance to yourselves; do not forget your 
allegiance to civilization; do not forget your allegiance to 
republican institutions, and do not forget your allegiance to 
God in heaven. 

As sure as time rolls on, as sure as the sun shall rise 
and illuminate with its gorgeous rays those lofty peaks that 
rear their heads heavenward above us, and continues its 
course until it reaches the West and sinks behind those 
mountains that are to endure forever, remember, fellow 
citizens, one and all, that justice, and right, and humanity, 
and law, and order, and piety, and virtue, will in the end, 
triumph over all. 

Our government is a government of the people; our 
government is a government for the people; our govern- 
ment, thank God, is a government by the people. If it be 



LINCOLN AND GARFIELD. 20^ 

not the best on earth, if it shall not finally triumph in the 
onward inarch of civilization, then has humanity been cre- 
ated in vain; then has every man lived to no purpose; for 
I am sure, poor and infirm man as I am, I am sure that 
God in heaven intended the lowest and commonest, and 
the most ignorant of mankind, should share equally and 
fully and finally in the glorious existence, and in the full 
enjoyment of human life and human liberty. 

The death of Lincoln, the death of Garfield, the death of 
any man or combination of men who have lived, cannot 
aifect the onward march of a free, patriotic and honest 
people. A government resting upon the hearts of honest 
men, a government firmly grounded in the affections of & 
pure people, cannot rust and perish away. 

We live, fellow citizens, and we can only live by the in- 
stitutions of government. You may, many of you, feel as 
I have felt; you may, all of you have felt sometimes that 
the ways of government and the w^ays of constitution and 
the ways of laws are hard and oppressive. Within the view 
of yonr vision and limited intellect, you may often feel that 
all does not go right, that liberty does not flow out equally 
to all. We have these doubts, we have these misgivings; 
sometimes we harbor these unjust suspicions. Women and 
men, ladies and gentlemen, friends and countrymen, shake 
off all such thoughts, and dismiss all this ideal stuff from, 
yonr minds; let it waft away, this futile and senseless 
trash. Come back within the scope of your own individu- 
ality; come back within the rnnge of tlie powers of thought 
and reasoning with which God endowed you; throw away 
these false philosophies, and resolve, as I have done, to be 
true to the God in lleaveu, true to the moral lessons of. 
life, true to hone.-Jty, true to virtue and true to the flag of a 
Kepublic that waves forever a protection above our heads. 

Lincoln and Garfield were alike in many respects: both. 

14 



210 LINCOLN AND GARFIELD. 

were of hurable and obscure origin; both lived and died 
poor; botli were humane and tender b}' nature; both were 
soldiers; neither rose to great distinction as such, but in 
what all soldiers love and hold in the highest estimation, 
both earned the respect and good opinion of all citizens and 
patriots; both were highly gifted intellectually; both en- 
dowed with the purest and loftiest morality; both were in- 
tensely devoted to the union and universal liberty; both 
met the same untimely end; both fell from the same high 
pinnacle of fame, doomed to the same sad fate by the bullets 
of dark and bloody, minded men; and both honored and 
loved, will be forever treasured in the hearts of a grateful 
people, ever mindful of the lives of martyrs to freedom, 
resting forever in the affection and love of all the people of 
the Republic and of all lovers of liberty throughout the 
world. 

Here I might well afford to stay my remarks. I feel 
that I can add nothing to relieve the deep feeling that pen- 
etrates and permeates the hearts of all who have so pa- 
tiently listened to me. Death has done its work; all these 
daj'S of mournful solemnities throughout the entire Nation 
and the world, will close the career of the life of James A. 
Garfield. 

Fellow citizens of Leadville, it is due to you, it is due 
to your community, it is due to these people, to whom I 
am not so much a stranger as I was a year ago, yet com- 
paratively a stranger in your midst, that I should render 
and return to you, to your committee, to your maj'or and 
councilmen, to the army, to the representatives of the State, 
to the militia, to the soldiers present, my thanks for this 
undeserved honor, for this great compliment unexpectedly 
bestowed upon me of ofhciating here upon this occasion. 
I live in another State; my home is in Illinois, where it 
has been for forty-five years, but in another and a broader 



LINCOLN AND GARFIELD. 211 

and a higher sense, under the benign influence of our ex- 
pansive and generous constitution, I, like you all, like every 
one of you present, am a citizen not only of the State 
wherein I reside, but am also a citizen of each State and 
Territory of this Union. And wherever you plant your feet, 
or I shall plant my foot, within the reach and surroundings 
of our constitution, both you and I, and all of us, are at 
home and secure. A.11 of you in Colorado, in Lake county 
and in Leadville, you and I and all of us, are equally 
and securely at home and at rest to-day. But there 
is something further I ought to say. As I said to 
my old friend, Judge Ward, to-da}^ not only here, but 
wherever I shall hereafter go, it will, it shall, be most 
pleasant and agreeable to me to bear testimony to, 
the state of society that I have met with in these moun- 
tainous regions. In this State of Colorado, and in this 
city of Leadville, I uniformly encounter nothing but 
decorum, nothing but propriety, nothing but respect, 
nothing but cordiality, nothing but sympathy and the 
highest and the best of American brotherhood. I know it 
is too freely written, too often said that here, life, property 
and peace are not secure. It is wrong, it is an unjust re- 
flection, upon the state of society that I behold before me 
to-day. "Witness this demonstration of sympathy and sorrow. 
How it must affect the heart of that pure, noble, simple 
American woman, the bosom companion, the better part 
and relict of James A. Garfield, when she shall learn of these 
mountaineers, these miners that wield the pick and 
shovel, these men that dare to dive deep into the hidden 
riches, and mysteries of the earth, cut off" for a time from 
the tender relations of society, by raising up men, women 
and children, to-day, in beautiful, majestic array, to testify 
in mourning and sorrow, under the influence of sweet, 
touching and fruitful music, their profound sympathy for 



211 GAIiFIELD, THE CERISTIAN. 

the loss tJie motlier and the children have sustained, and 
for the loss the nation has sustained. 

I see liere w'li.jrever i l,o, and I ^ee here uhevcrer I 
gtroll. the sweet and gentle inflaeuce of wontxi; — God blesa 
their gejitle and mild influence upon men here in LeadvilJet 
I have met them, pni*e, lelined, delicate, elegant, casting 
the influence of their modest presence apon the rcuyher 
tone of society; ir, is felt, and humanity is lifted up. God 
bless the women of America! 

Fellow-citizens, brother soldiers, soon I leave yon, per- 
haps to return no more. Though not blessed with Fncjess 
myself, I can bear testimony to the s access of others, and 
above that and better than that, 1 can and shall bdar testi- 
mony to the high state of society, to the nicrality and to 
the Christian influence that pervades this entire atmosphere. 



GARFIELD, THE CHRISTIAN. 



By Ret. J. W. I^^grxv:. 



CellTered at the Memorial Serr!ces In Oirahs, Nch., CepL 2S, tSIL 

My weeping brethren and sorrowing countrymen, I am 
not willing that one word of mine should go to encourage 
anything like a man-worshiping opiilt. But Arhile the 
tongue of evil is ever busy painting in darkerit colors, in 
all places, the faults and follies of our falleji race, it seems 
no less a duty than a pleasure to point the whole world to 



GARFIELD, THE CHSTSTIAN. 213 

the brilliant life and beautiful Christian virtues of our de- 
ceased President. 

The influence of this life, and the reflections of these vir- 
tues can be confined to no class, people, or nation, lu 
every Ir-nd where the torch of civilization has driven back 
the darkness of barbarism, their influence lias been felt, and 
all national life has been made more beautiful by their em- 
bellishments. 

The Christianity of James A. Garfield is so closely inter- 
woven with his private and publij life, that it is ditficult to 
speak of one and not the otlier; it is the one thread of gold 
that runs tlirough every upward step of his sublime life, 
from the dark shadows of poverty and obscurity, to tlie 
fullness of the glory and honor of the greatest of all na- 
tions. 

The religion of tliis Christian statefman was not that of 
a mere outward profession, nor yet of a mere inward sen- 
timent or feeling. Prayers, songs and public services, did 
not exhaust his idea of Christianity. AVith him religion 
was a life, not a creed, not a dogma, not a system of meta- 
physics; but a daily cross-bearing, sacrificing, charity be- 
stowing life. 

As evidence of his princely faith in an All-wise Creator, 
a divine lledeemer, and an inspired Bible, it might be sufH- 
■cient to direct the attention of the world to his righteous 
life, and triumphant death, but along the j)athway of his 
earthy pilgrimage are repeated tiaslies of religious light, 
that more clearly reveal to us liis confidence in, and reli- 
ance nT)Ou a divine revelation. At the age of nineteen he 
made for the first time a public avowal of his belief in the 
gospel of God's grace;. Doubtless this act was the result 
of his overpowering faitli in God, and his deep sense of 
duty. No love of lame, no thirst for earthly glory, no lust 
for worldly wealth, could have impelled him to bow his 



214 GARFIELD, THE CHRISTIAN. 

loyal neck to the yoke of the Master; for the people with 
whom he made his spiritual home were an humble, and 
at that time a despised people, clinging to the cross, and 
building quietly on the rock. They could be of no possi- 
ble service to him in any worldly sense whatever. 

Later on in life, in October, 1876, he stood with uncovered 
head, face to face with death. At his feet lay the pale, life- 
less form of his own darling boy. His grief was as deep 
and sincere as his paternal love. He took a pen in his 
hand, and under the direction of his great heart, wrote a 
note to his Christian brethren, asking that a few of them 
be with him in his great trial, and ended the note by sub- 
scribing himself: "In the hope of the gospel, so precious 
in this affliction." These are words of faith springing 
from a sorrowing heart, and penned by a trembling hand. 

Could we have gone on some* bright Sunday morning a 
few months ago, and opened the door of the small, unpre- 
tentious frame church in the village of Mentor, Ohio, and 
seen the manly form of our gifted brother, with liis wife 
and children by his side, surrounded by a group of poor, 
humble country worshipers; and could we have heard his 
deep bass voice mingling with theirs in song, and witnessed 
his humble reverence as he bowed in solemn prayer with 
them around the same altar, our confidence in the majesty 
of his faith, the humility of his heart, and the purity of 
his life, must forever reTiiain unspoken. 

But never, since the days the Man of Sorrows expired 
on the cross, did the Christian faith shine forth with more 
heavenly lustre than during the eighty long, dreary days 
of the President's suffering. When the fatal shot was fired 
that cut him down, he was in the meridian of liis manhood, 
the halo of a nation's glory was upon him, and the sun of 
his fame was high in the heavens. 

That morning when he stood in the fated depot, con vers- 



GARFIELD, THE CHRISTIAN. 215 

ing with Secretary Blaine, his body was full of health, his 
heart was full of hope, and his mouth was full of words of 
promise. 

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the body was 
smitten with the arrows of death ; the hopes of his heart 
were blasted forever; the world of promise and cheer were 
changed into cries of pain and anguish; the feet so lightly 
started in the path of r jcreatiou and pleasure, were rudely 
turned into the gloomy highway leading to the shadows of 
death; but all this combined with great physical suifering, 
could not extort from the patient Christian sufferer a sin- 
gle murmur of complaint. Did ever mortal bear so much, 
with such manly courage and Christian fortitude? And 
how free were those days of trial from everything like fear 
of death, or dread of dying. 

With him there was no constant demand for the presence 
and prayers of a minister to aid him in a preparation for 
the approach of death. During life he had prepared for 
death. He relied not so much on the power of prayer as 
the' purity of life for happiness in the far-off forever. Some 
have supposed the almost constant absence from the sick- 
chamber of the ministers of the gospel, was evidence of a 
lack of faith upon the part of the nation's ruler; but to 
my mind, it only shows that his trust was not in feeble 
clay, or the prayers of erring men, but rather in a holy life 
and forgiving Christ. 

It is tlie coward who has made no preparation for 
^idying while living, who cries for preachers and prayers 
when the shadows of death lengthen and deepen around 
him. 

With marvelous faith and confidence, this great man re- 
signed all to the will of the Lord. My Christian brethren 
and fellow countrymen, let us embalm in our memories for- 
ever the industrious lad, the dutiful boy, the loving son, 



«hB GARFIELD, THE CHRISTIAN, 

the Btndious youth, the faithful husband, the devoted father, 
tiie generous neighbor, the gifted teacher, tlie bra\ e soldier, 
the eloquent preacher, the brilliant statesman, the wise 
ruler, tl>e patient sufferer, the pure ChriBtian, and — our 
fallen chieftain. 

" Fallen on Zlon's battle-fleld, 
A soldier of reuown, 

Armed in the panoply of God, 
In conflict cloven down ; 

His hemlet on, his armor bright. 
His cheet unblanched with fear. 

While round his head there gle&med ft llglK^ 
His dying hour to cheer. 

"Fallen— a holy man of God, 
Ad Israelite indeed, 

A standard-bearer of the cross, 
Mighty in word and deed; 

A master spirit of the age, 
A bright and burning light, 

Whose l>eams across the lirmaiaeDt 
Scattered the clouds of night, 

* Fa->len. as sets the sun at ere, 
To rise in splendor, where 

His kindred luminaries shine. 
Their heaven of bliss to share ; 

Beyond the strong battle-field. 
He reigns in triumph now, 

Sweeping a harp of wondrous SOOf, 
With glory on bis brow I " 



THE FUNCTIONS OF GREAT MEN. 



By Rev. Dr. Rankin. 



DellTcred In the First Congregational Church, Washington, D. C„ Sept. 25, 1881. 

Ie. ill.. l-.V-"For, behold the Tx>rd, the Lord of Hosts, doth take away from Jenjsa- 
lein Riid from Jiidea the miglity man, the man of war, the honorable man, the 
counselor, and the eloquent orator." 

There is no function of society, said the reverend speaker, 
more vital than the choice of rulers. In this countrj it is 
an anointing holier than that of a king. It is the utter- 
ance of a voice which is the voice of God. What foreigner 
or citizen thinks of this Nation without thinking of her 
great men ? And we are largely what these great men 
have helped to make us, Disorganizers of society look 
upon great men as in some sense usurpers, as having crowd- 
ed their way to stations of prominence by jostling aside 
their betters. Thus the Nihilist prepares his hand-grenade, 
and the assassin his revolver. They do not reflect that pre- 
paration for such positions is of God — that they are God's 
gifts. "Brutus and Ca3sar! What should be in that 
Caesar ?" They talk as Cassius talked to Brutus. 

Irreverence for rulers is one of the perils of a republic 
It is all true, as Goldsmith says, that a breath can give 
dignity and station. But the breath that calls men to such 
places cannot make them tit to occupy them. How peace- 
ful was the heart of this great Nation to feel that at last 

(217) 



218 THE FUNCTIONS OF GREAT MEN. 

there was a genuine, typical American in the presidential 
chair! " Upon this arm can I lean; this head, this heart 
can I trust." This is what she said. 

But there is something grander than the place to which 
James Abram Garfield was called, in the fact that he was 
the product of our free institutions. The American people 
did not make him great. Had thej never selected him to 
occupy the presidential chair the man had been the same. 
And we may well ask if God did not give him the place, 
and his brief career in it, only that the people might love 
him better, and take his name and his memor}'^ more into 
their hearts forever. The highest product of American 
national life is neither patrician nor plebeian. It blends and 
unites them both. It has the patrician culture with the 
plebeian heart. Washington stands at the head of one type, 
Lincoln at the head of the other. Do we err when we inti- 
mate that Garfield illustrates them both ? A plebeian, a 
common man in all his sympathies ; a patrician in the 
quality of his mind and the extent of his culture. President 
Gar)''.eld's honors came to him unsought. They came so 
fast he could not keep up with them. 

T]ie greatness which he achieved he did not struggle for, 
but grew into. Life laid her honors at his feet. Place 
after place cried out for him. He stood up in a great con- 
vention to advocate the claims of another. He became at 
once tlie cynosure of all eyes; he ravished all ears. lie 
could not be true to anotbor without being his own best 
self. It was nothino" new ; it had been so all his life lonor. 
There he stood ; how could the people help taking him? 
His nomination was an inspiration. It was foreordained, 
lile the consummate bloom of the flower. 

This manV power never degenerated. He was reverent 
oi good things by nature, and to him all good things were 
gf >,at. He had no flippant flings for the religion of his 



THE FUNCTIONS OF GREAT MEN. 219 

mother. He revered the great New England teacher ; 
and when the assassin first sought him it was in the sanc- 
tuary of God. He finished his education in New England. 
It was fitting that New England hands should place the 
capital on this column, which was to go into the temple of 
freedom side by side with Washington and Lincoln ; that 
he who began his studies where he heard the lancjuaffe of 
the Great Lakes, should conclude them where he could 
listen to the hymn which the Pilgrims heard when they 
laid our first foundations. 

He was the united, the consummate flower of the New 
England of the East and the New England of the West. 
Do you ask me why he was so rudely and cruelly taken? 
Not for his own sake, we may be very sure. He was our 
President — our representative. In smiting him God has 
smitten us. Do not our relations to God need fi-esh read- 
justment? Have we kept the covenant we made with Him 
when he walked with us in the furnace of fire? Have the 
men in our highest places kept it? We have Cliiistian 
convictions as to the Indian question, as to Mormonism, as 
to traflac in liquors. Are we true to them? It is a great 
thing to feel that though the man at the wheel is striken 
down, the Ship of State moves majestically on ; that the 
footsteps of God are in the seas before her. 

Such a Government as this cannot die. It does not rest 
in anyone man. Tiie same authority which made Garfield 
President indicated his successor. We turn away from 
Garfield, dead, not to forget him. If he has made mis- 
takes — as who of our greatest have not, and have we not 
forgiven them? — let us remember that his hand was scarcely 
familiar with the helm of state; that he was yet in the 
narrows of his administration, and that his greatest mistake 
must always have sprung Irum a great loving heart that 
feared no ill, because it meant none — a man always more 



220 TEE FUNCTIONS OF GREAT MEN. 

ainried against tlian sinning. In taking one, God has given 
another. The man whom the people named second, God 
has now named drst. No unlineal hand takes the sceptre; 
bat a man of character and purpose, true and tried; a man 
who ha^ walked in the shadow of one great eclipse with a 
patlietic discreetness which has won all hearts, and whose 
first official acts and utterances give assurance that with 
these unsought responsibilities has come to him peculiar 
grace from God. If he has made his mistakes we bury 
them in that still open grave of his predecessor. 

May we not close with the lines in which the poet Ten- 
nysun finishes the poem Mort d' Arthur? 

" The old order chanKeth, yielding place to her, 
And God fulfilLs Himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 
• «««**«• 

And so to bed ; where yet in sleep I seemed 

To saU with Arthur under looming shores. 

To me methouglit 

There came a- barque that, flowing for^vard, bor« 

King Anhur, a modern gentleman 

Of stateliest part ; and all the people cried : 

Arthur Is come agaia; be cannot diet" 

When the Nation awakens from her grief, may she find 
the parable true. Then shall be fulfilled the prophecy 
*'' Thou shalt be no more called Forsaken. Neither shall 
thy land be termed any more Desolate. But thou shalt be 
called Hcphzibah and thy land Beulah. For the Lord de 
liffhteth in thee." 



WHY WE MOURN. 



Bt N. R. Haupeb, Esq. 



DcUrered at the opening of the Special Memorial Rervicoa, held by the Colored 

People of Louisville, Ky., Sept. 26, iWL 

This service was held in the opera house. On the 
gtaw-e chairs were arrant^ed in a serai-circle, with three 
chairs in the center. Those in a semi-circle were thirty- 
five in number, whicli, with tlie tliree in the center, made 
a number equal to the number of States in the Union. 
Tliese chairs were occupied by the girl pupils of the public 
Bchools, each one of them holding a small placard in her 
hand, with the name of one of the States printed in large 
letters across it. All the girls, except the tliree occnf)ying 
the chairs in the center, were dressed in white; those in 
the center representing the three States, Ohio, New Jersey 
and Kentucky, were dressed in mourning. These wore 
called the mourning States, because Garfield died in one, 
was buried in another, and the people of Kentucky univer- 
sally lament his untimely death. Across the front of llio 
stao-e were arranged chairs for those who were to take part 
in the exercises, the seats in the front rows of the panpiet 
being reserved for the choir and school children. The in- 
side of the building was draped in mourning in a very 
handsome manner, and each one of the girls representing 
the three mourning States held a large portrait of the 

(221) 



222 WHY WE MOURN. 

President, heavily draped in mourning. The meeting was 
presided over by N. R. Harper, Esq. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: — Pursuant to arrangements per- 
fected in a recent mass- meeting of the colored citizens of 
Louisville, I announce to you the opening of the exercises 
at this hour. 

The question may be asked by some why we, as colored 
citizens, should single ourselves out for special memorial 
services on our part, when the same shot that rang out in 
the ladies' waiting-room at the Baltimore and Potomac 
depot, in Washington City, on the 2d day of last July, was 
felt alike by all citizens throughout the length and breadth 
of our common country? Why should we, as a class of 
citizens of Louisville, where all hearts are bowed down with 
the sadness of this hour, when the booming of cannon, and 
the mournful pealing of bells utter the lamentations of our 
city? — why should we thus particularly address ourselves 
to the public at this hour? The answer to these questions 
may be given — that a Divine hand had so shaped the des- 
tiny of colored Americans, that we can feel and realize to 
the fullest extent the power and influence of a tried, true 
and faithful friend, or the blows of a heartless, uncharita- 
ble foe. And who is there who can more faithfully inter- 
pret the emotions of our hearts than we ourselves, who feel, 
as no other class of citizens in this country can feel, that a 
friend to American liberty has been called away? To-day, 
as a race, we mourn the loss of a tried, true and faithful 
friend. The sequel shows that every man who, in the dark 
years of the past, gave his time, his talent, his voice and 
his vote to the work of driving oppression from the land, in 
order that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness might, 
indeed, become the star of hope for the American people; 
such man was the tried, true and faithful friend of the col- 



WHY WE MOURN. • 223 

ored citizens of America. This meeting, therefore, can but 
faintly express the sentiment of the colored citizens of Lou- 
isville in this hour of national grief and mourning. The 
crowned spirit which took its flight heavenward on last 
Monday night, as James A. Garfield, was a tried, true and 
faitl^tul friend of our race. He has left us. " After life's 
fitful fever he sleeps well." Assassination has done its 
worst. Nor malice, strife, envy, life's trials and tribula- 
tions, nothing can touch him further. But, even amid the 
darkness of this national gloom, hope sees a star, and from 
its silvery rays, flashing from the throne of light, reveals in 
golden lines, "America, live on; live ever!" 

At the conclusion of Mr. Harper's address, the choir 
ranged themselves in order across the stage, and sang the 
opening anthem: "To Thee, O Lord, I yield my spirit." 

REV. T. B. CAXDWELl's PKAYER. 

"O God of Nations! Chief Arbiter of all things! 
King of Kings and Lord of Lords ! In Thy presence we 
come this day, humbly acknowledging Thy power. Thou 
art mighty; Thou canst work and no one can hinder Thee. 
With Thee are the issues of life and death. Thy tender 
mercy and loving kindness have followed us all the day^, of 
our life, even until now, and Thine infinite love embraces 
us as a goodly-fitting garment. Thou art the same un- 
changeable God as Thou wast in the beginning, and shall 
be through all eternity. O Lord, we desire Thy help in 
this dark hour of our bereavement. We pray Thee, our 
Father, for Thy sustaining grace, while we bow to the 
stroke of Thy rod of providence. We are ignorant, but 
Thou art wise. As far as the heavens are above the earth, 
60 far are Thy ways above ours. We pray Thee to look from 
Thy throne of glory in the heavens upon this Nation, bathed 
in tears, and while we mourn, be Thou our comforter. 



224 WHY WE MOURN. 

Turn our sadness into joy, and bj Thy wonderfal provi- 
dence, tnrn this calamity to tlie good of our country; clear 
away the shadows of death from the grave of onr departed 
President. Remember, O Lord, we pray Thee, that heroic 
woman, who has tenderly watched by the death-bed of our 
dead Ruler through all these weary days — may she lean 
upon Thy strong arm and find support in this, the darkest 
hour of her widowhood and bereavement. Be unto her a 
husband and unto her children a father. Bless his mother, 
that one who, in the days of his youth, taught him to love 
Thee. O Lord, support her in her old age, and may con- 
solation take hold upon her heart, when she realizes that 
she will soon be with her son upou the golden shore, where 
no assassin can come to rob her of her ' baby.' We pray 
Thee to bless those who were with him during his affliction 
and endeavored to win him back to strength, and as they 
mingle their tears to-day with ours, may they be comforted 
in the assurance that they have done their duty. Bless 
l*resident Arthur. Give him the wisdom to fill the office 
vacant by the hand of death. May he trust in Thee and 
follow the example set before him. May he rule in right- 
eousness and in Thy holy love. We pray Thee also, O 
Lord, to remember poor Guiteau, the assassin, shut out 
from the sunliglit, incarcerated in his cell and hated by all 
men. O God, we pray Thee, Thou who art the sinner's 
friend, have mercy upon his guilty soul. Guide us as a na- 
tion, watch over us as a people, and at last save us, we ask, for 
our Redeemer's sake. Amen." 



WE ALL MOURN. 



By Captain Henry Jackson. 
Delivered at the Memorial Service In Atlanta, Ga., Sept 28, 188L 

Fifty millions of people, of every shade of political opin- 
ion, of every form of religion ; people from all the ends of 
the earth, from every section of this land, stand to-day be- 
fore an open grave, with heads bowed in sorrow and humili- 
ation; sorrow for greatness stricken of its glory, sorrow for 
the suffering widow and children. Ko such shock as this 
was ever before known in our country. 

The president once fell by the hand of violence, but that 
was fresh upon the clash of contending armies. But now, 
in a time of profound peace, in a time of unparalleled na- 
tional prosperity, when there is no bitterness between the 
sections or the two parties, when the national sun was 
shining with brilliancy, when the Goddess of Liberty was 
radiant — at that very moment the head of the government 
falls before the hand of the assassin. 

The scene that is presented before us is one that the 
world has never before witnessed. What is it due to ? It 
is due to the character of our institutions; to their possi- 
bility for developing the highest good or the direst evil. 
Under our institutions every man has an opportunity to 
reach a position which his superior talents entitle him to, 
15 (225) 



S26 WE ALL MOURN. 

at the same time the liberality of our in^titntions leaves a 
gate open wlicre weak minds, or hearts black and tainted 
with crime, can go in and work irreparable damage. 

No matter how we have differed in the past, now it seems 
Garfield was a great and good man. 

Twenty years ago, Lincoln was regarded as a bad man, 
and yet to-day there is scarcely an intelligent man who 
does not admit that he was honest and great, and that his 
death was the severest blow that the South ever received. 

The shot of Guiteau has demonstrated beyond all 
peradventure the attachment of the people of the South 
for the whole country. They knew not the President, 
and yet, when violence attacked him, the men, women, and 
the very children cried out with indignation. They prayed 
that the assassin might not prove to be from the South, and 
for nearly three months they waited with bated breath every 
bulletin. 

The following resoultions by the special committee from 
Coeur de Leon Commandery were read at this meeting by 
Right Eminent "W. D. Luckie : 

Amidst the mourning of the whole land, the people of this 
city, led in a solemn service by the order of Knights 
Templar, of which our late heroic President was an hon- 
ored member, would lament the untimely and unhappy 
severance of all their earthly relations with him by the ab 
rupt thrust of rude and cruel death. 

Widespread as is his own country's broad domain, hangs 
this day the sable cloud of jiopular sorrow, from which 
universal tears are falling. This day the States of the 
Union unite in a new brotherhood of grief over their com- 
mon loss. 

The people en masse are claiming that the bereavement 
is their own, for they were learning when he fell that lie 
was the President of the whole country. 



WE ALL MOURN. 227 

Society suffers the pang of separation from a genial com- 
panion, and the republic of letters losing a cultured citizen 
•would show its own peculiar grief. 

The families of the land bewail with common sorrow the 
loss of an illustrious and exemplary son, husba^nd, father. 

The genins of republican government intensely resenting 
the manner of his death, presents mournful but exalted 
tributes to his patriotism, intelligence and virtue. 

And religion asserts its rightful place in the general la- 
ment, but commits even with tearful eyes the child of 
grace unto Him who has received his redeemed spirit into 
glory. 

Thus, also, this order came in union with all to offer its 
tribute to his memory, who was one of the knightliest 
soldiers of the cross. 

Henceforth, with special pleasure, his biography from 
his earliest years to the close of his life, will be placed in 
the hands of our American youth, that they may emulate 
the character of one, who with proper ambition and gener- 
ous endeavors, attained the highest places of honor and 
usefulness, while he maintained his Christian virtues and 
kept himself in the fear of God. 

That Divine providence has in infinite wisdom already 
made the circumstances of the revolting assassination pro- 
duce good in the land we can faithfully trust. That the 
sentiment which the thrilling event created and developed 
has pervaded the hearts of all the people of our great coun- 
try, calls for universal congratulation; and that the future 
of our government will be happily shaped by the patriotic 
and pious influences this day profoundly felt everywhere, 
is a hope for whose realization all good people do most de- 
voutly pray! 

Thus cherishing in memory all the virtues of our la- 
mented president, and with reverent awe submitting to the 



228 WE ALL MOURN. 

Divine Will, we desire to express our sense of the bereave- 
ment in these declarations: 

1. "We declare our indignation at the revolting and in- 
iquitous assassination of the president, deploring that in 
all this country one man could exist who was capable of so 
great a crime. 

2. We revere the memory of him who was at once pa- 
triot, president and brother — who lived and died a Chris- 
tian man. 

3. We send to the venerable mother, to the devoted wife, 
to the fatherless children, every sentiment of sympathy, and 
would claim them, in common with the country, as a sa- 
cred trust. 

4. We bow our will submissively to God, and making 
record of this paper, do direct that a copy be forwarded 
to the Grand Commandery of the State, and that another 
copy be transmitted to the family. 



THE PERFECT MAN. 



Bt Eldeb J. Z. Tatlob. 



Delivered at the Memorial Services In Kansas City, Mo., Sept. 26, 188L 

We have met on this sad day to pay the last tribute of 
respect to our departed President. Fifty million people 
to-day in this great country are uniting with us in this me- 
morial, and even from foreign shores comes the assurance 
that the hearts of all mankind are with us in this reverent 
memorial. We come to express this tribute to the mem- 
ory of the grandest man of all ages. The mightiest pro- 
duct of this or any other country, torn from us in the full 
bloom of his usefulness by the hand of an assassin, and 
while we contemplate this scene, we cannot but feel that 
there must be some disarrangement in the plans of Provi- 
dence, some mighty revolution in the splieres, else why 
was not the bullet stayed in its progress? why was not the 
arm palsied that directed the blow, and the death of him 
whose untimely end we all mourn to-day averted? 

Yet, even in this crisis, we are reminded of the words of 
the famous statesman and know that God reigns and that 
His mercies are infinite, althougli we may not be able to 
fathom the depths of His mysterious Providence. 

*• God moves in a mysterious way 
His wonders to perform." 

(229) 



230 THE PERFECT MAN. 

The grandeur and power of a great life, continued the 
speaker, is not weakened by its duration. One single act 
may influence all the ages. We measure life by what it 
accomplishes. The history of this man and his success lies 
in the fact that he was the embodiment of all that was 
grand, noble and pure in human life. Around his sufler- 
ing bed gathered the hearts of fifty millions of people. Up 
from the hearts of the great American Nation arose the 
prayer, " Oh, if it be possible, let this cup pass from us, 
nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done." 

His history was not a long one. He was born on the 
19th of November, 1831, and left an orphan at 2 years. 
He supported his widowed mother by manly toil, and thus 
gained that strength of body and mind which carried him 
to the highest place in the gift of this Republic. 

His progress was steady from the tow-path to the presi- 
dential chair, the highest gift in the province of any peo- 
ple or any nation. He was a man of great intellectual en- 
dowment and fine physique. He could take his stand in 
the front rank of the intellects of the age. He was a la- 
borious man — a toiler. The industry which characterized 
him in his youth, when he cut 100 cords of wood for $25 
and gave the money to his mother, characterized him in 
his public life, and as Congressman Havens remarked, 
"He was the most laborious man in the halls of Congress.'* 
He was a man characterized by virtues and upright habits. 
He carried these habits throughout his life. He was, how- 
ever, a man of deep convictions. He said : " There ia 
one with whom I must always be on good terms. I am 
compelled to walk with him, eat with him, sleep with him 
— I mean myself." He meant his conscience, and he 
lived up to this life-rule. 

When preaching in Washington I never missed Garfield 
on Sunday from his seat in the house of worship. When 



THE PERFECT MAN. 231 

we were abont to- leave Mentor, Garfield's voice could be 
heard above all the voices singing: " All hail the power of 
Jesus' name." 

That was James A. Garfield's great nature. He was a 
Christian in the highest sense of the term. It made him 
a faithful and loving son, a devoted husband and father, and 
a true friend. He was the most perfect man physically, 
morally, intellectually and spiritually, that the ages have 
ever produced. 

From this we may learn the great lesson that politics may 
be pure. James A. Garfield's life demonstrates the fact 
that a man may be a Christian and a politician and a states- 
man at the same time. We may learn* that the American 
people will hold in their hearts a noble aim and an honor- 
able life. It will teach future aspirants that if they would 
attain to the highest place of honor they must be men of 
virtue and integrity. We learn further the lesson that it is 
in the power of the humblest to attain positions of honor. 
This great country ofiers such hopes to every young man 
in the United States. 

The grandest achievement of our sainted President lay 
in the fact that he was an humble follower of the lowly 
Savior. The American heart beats toward the Savior as 
tlie rightful ruler over human consciences. He could look 
down to the dark valley — it had no terrors for him. 

Death had been robbed of its sting. Our beloved chief- 
tain passed away in the hope guaranteed by the Lord Jesus 
Christ — the hope of a better life. In conclusion, the speaker 
volunteered other eloquent tributes to Garfield, who had 
been a member of his church, and whom he had known 
personally, and preached to in Washington. 

A chorus of school children, led by Major White, sang 
beautifully : " Mark the tolling of the bell." 



THE LAMENTED PRESIDENT 



By Hon. Roger A. Prtob. 



Deliyered at » meeting of Union and Confederate soldiers, In Brooy>.rn, Sept 22, 

183L 

Me. Chairman: — I have a melancholy pleasure in partic- 
ipating in this demonstration of respect to the m'^morj of 
our lamented President, and in uniting with the Nation 
in its expression of anguish over the bereavement that has 
befallen it. 

Gen. Garfield was a person of such amiable and engaging 
virtues, and was in every way so worthy of the felicity 
awaiting him in his exalted station, that his sudden fall 
smites us with the shock of a cruel disappointment. Just 
chosen to the Chief Magistracy of the Republic by the ac- 
claiming voice of his countrymen, endowed with every fac- 
ulty essential to the successful discharge of its duties, and 
cheered and sustained by the support of the people, he 
would have achieved among the rulers of the earth an hon- 
orable and an imperishable fame, and would have transmit- 
ted his name to posterity in association with the illuptrioua 
men who have imparted dignity and renown to the Amer- 
ican Union. 

But, untimely though his end may seem, he had lived 
long enough for his own glory. He cannot be said to 

(232) 



THE LAMENTED PRESIDENT. 233 

perish prematurely, who has already fulfilled the offices of 
civic and of martial life, and who has blazoned his name 
with the double lustre of the statesman and the soldier. 
And while, had he survived, the passions of party might 
have obscured the radiance of his character, and have 
eclipsed somewhat the splendor of his career, he sinks now 
amidst the universal lamentations of the people and in the 
full effulgence of an unclouded promise. The stroke that 
removes him from the scene consecrates him in the heart 
of the Nation, lends a tragic pathos to his fate, and invests 
his memory with the halo of a sacrificial offering. Here- 
after, as often as men shall revert to the incidents of this 
catastrophe, and the sad story will be a theme of undying 
interest, they will accord to the martyr the tear of pity and 
the homage of veneration. 

But while, as short-sighted mortals, we are confounded 
by the blow which shatters so many cherished hopes and 
affronts our imperfect sense of justice, let us not mistrust 
the wisdom and benevolence of the overruling Providence; 
but let us, rather, piously confide that from the cloud of 
calamity will issue a blessing to the Nation. Already, in 
the manifestations of mourning prevalent throughout the 
South, we discern the tokens of that union of hearts which 
is the surest safeguard^ of the union of States. And who 
will repel the fond belief that in the presence of this awful 
catastrophe, the clamor of sectional contention will be soft- 
ened and subdued into an accordant strain of fraternal sym- 
pathy; and that around the bier of our departed President 
the scattered children of the household will be gathered in- 
to the embrace of a reconciled and reunited family. So 
may it be, and the life of the Republic be as invulnerable 
and immortal as the career of its chief was brief and pre- 
carious I 



IN LONDON. 



Minister Lo will's Adiress in Exeter HalL 



[Among those present were the Spanish and Brazilian Ministers, the Belgian and 
Russian Charge d'Aflfaires, the Brazilian. Belgian and Chinese Secretaries of Le- 
gation, the military attache of the German Embassy, Mr. John Bard, Mr. Fish, 
late Minister to Berne, Mr. Seligman, Mr. Thomas Hughes, the Count of Monte- 
bello, the Lady Maynes and ex-Senator Miller of Georgia.] 

We meet to testify our respect for the character and 
services of the late President, and to oifer such consolation 
as is possible to the noble widow, suffering as few women 
have ever been called upon to suffer. It seems a paradox, 
but the only alleviation of our grief is the sense of the 
greatness and costliness of the sacrifice that has caused it. 

It is no exaggeration to say that the recent profoundly 
touching spectacle of womanly devotedness has moved the 
heart of mankind in a manner unprecedented. To Ameri- 
cans everywhere it comes home with a pang of mingled 
sorrow and pride, and of unspeakable tenderness that none 
but ourselves can feel. Yet you will all agree that the 
feeling of universal sympathy expressed here by all classes 
has made us sensible, as never before, that we are in a 
strange, but not in a foreign, land; that we are at least in 
what Ilawthorne called the old home. 

I should do injustice to your feelings, no less than to 
my own, if I did not offer here our grateful acknowledg- 
ments to the august lady who, herself not unacquainted 

(234) 



IN LONDON. 235 

with grief, has shown so repeatedly and tonchingly how 
a true woman's heart can beat under the royal purple. 

Rhetoric relative to President Garfield's noble end is out 
of the question. If we were allowed to follow the prompt- 
ings of our own hearts we should sum all up in the sacred 
words, "Well done, good and faithful servant." 

The death scene was unexampled. The whole civilized 
world gathered about it. Let us thank God that it was 
through the manliness, the patience and the religious forti- 
tude of the noble victim that the tie of human brother- 
hood was thrilled. 

That " touch of nature that makes the whole world kin," 
is the touch of heroism, our sympathy with which dignifies 
and ennobles. 

When dying, though there were few from whom death 
wrenched a richer heritage, there were few who would, like 
Garfield, die well daily for eleven weeks. The fibre that 
could stand such a strain is only used in the making of 
heroic natures. Gen. Garfield, twenty years ago, ofi'ered 
his life for his country. He has now died for her as truly 
as if he had fallen dead then. His blood has cemented the 
fabric of the Union; his example is a stimulus to his coun- 
trymen forever. 

Like the career of Joseph, Garfield had a similar humble 
beginning, and has died the tenant of an office second to 
none on earth. 

It would be improper to discuss the character of him 
who is now our Chief Magistrate, but there is no indeco- 
rum in saying, what is known to all, that he is a gentle- 
man of high intelligence and of unimpeachable character 
and ability. 

I am not a believer that a democratic more than any 
other form of government will work of itself, but in com- 
mon with you all, I have imperturbable faith in the honesty 



286 IN LONDON. 

intelligence and good sense of the American people and in 
the destiny of the American Republic. Gen. Garfield 
once said to me: " There may be a defect in my character* 
but I never could hate anybody." 

Resolutions deploring the great public misfortune of a 
death which plunged a nation in lasting sorrow, sympa- 
thizing with the late President's mother and widow, and 
acknowledging the affectionate solicitude of the Queen and 
people of England, were adopted in solemn silence, all the 
audience rising to their feet. 

Eloquent speeches were made by ex-Collector Merritt of 
Kew York, Bishop Simpson, Rev. Mr. Channing, Junius S. 
Morgan, Moncure D. Conway, and others. 



PERSONAL TRIBUTES TO GEN. GARFIELD. 



JOHN G. WHITTIER THB POET, 

Amesbury, Mass. 

And now, when South and North, Democrat and Repub- 
lican, radical and conservative, lift their voices in one un- 
broken chord of lamentation ; when I see how, in spite of 
greed of gain, lust of office, strifes and meanness of party 
politics, the great heart of the Nation proves sound and 
loyal, I feel a new hope for the Republic, I have a firmer 
faith in its stability. It is said that no man liveth to him- 
self, and the pure and noble life of Garfield, and his slow, 
long martyrdom, so bravely borne in view of all, are, I be- 
lieve, bearing for us as a people " the peaceable fruits of 
righteousness." We are stronger, wiser, better for them. 



THE LOBD BISHOP OF MONTBEAI.. 
In St George's Church, Montreal, Canada. 

A WARNING voice strikes on the ear from the death-scene 
of one who filled a large space in the eye of the world. 
The late President of the United States, struck down by 
the hand of a dastardly assassin — " the dead yet speaketh." 
The chosen head of a great nation — the grandeur of his 
simple, upright character, illustrated by a life of fearless 

(237) 



238 PERSONAL TRIBUTES TO GEN. GARFIELD. 

courage and a death of Christ-like patience, presses on onr 
hearts by his premature and violent death the wisdom of 
considering the shortness of time, and of working while it 
is called " to-daj." The true patriot — the ardency of hia 
affection, adorned by filial piety and domestic faithfulness, 
appeals touchingly to our tenderest sympathies, exhorting 
to kindness, gentleness, love — " seeing that here we have 
no continuing city." 

My object at present is further to speak a few words of 
the late noble President. I said just now that his was a 
premature death — it seems so to us; seeing that he had 
only numbered fifty years, and had just entered with wis- 
dom and confidence on a course that bade fair to promote 
the best interests of the great nation over whose destinies 
he was called to preside. Yet it was not premature. "We 
have faith in God. The President's work was done, and 
well done. His life measured by his active usefulness, 
was a long life. He had finished the work God had given 
him to do ; and when we see by the light of eternity, we 
shall see that the very time and place, and way were the 
best for his departure from this existence. "We are sure of 
this, for the Christian world was on its knees supplicating 
for the President's life; with us not only was there public 
prayer, but also, as I visited in various missions, in family 
and social prayer, there was a petition for the President, 
and a cry for help, and strength and comfort from God for 
those who waited in terrible anxiety and anguish on the is- 
sue of the struggle between life and death. His death 
was not premature. The senseless cruelty of the act drew 
the attention of the world, and the worth of the victim 
gave to the world a splendid lesson of all that is great in 
man of goodness, courage, manliness, energy, virtue, com- 
bined with trust in God — a lesson to which history will 
point, saying to princes and rulers, " Go and do thou like- 



PERSONAL TRIBUTES TO GEN. GARFIELD. 239 

wise." I dare not draw aside the curtain that hides yet 
tells of the grief of that stricken home, "We will each 
pray, and unitedly pray — " O God, of Thine infinite mercy 
bind up the broken heart, heal the wounded spirit, minis- 
ter to the afflicted ones that strong consolation which 
Thine own tender and wise hand alone can bestow." 



A class-mate's KEMINISCElSrOES. 
DE. FRANKLIN NOBLE, Washington, D. C. 

My words can add nothing to his fame. I am honored 
that I can say I knew him. I met him first when he was 
entering Williams College. One could see that he was 
poor. He began poor, and never had time to grow rich. 
His slender property refuted the slander of corruption. 
With his talents and opportunities he remained poor, only 
because he would not take money corrnptly. He made his 
way independently, but if he leaves his family rich it is by 
the gifts of a grateful people. But he was rich in cordial- 
ity. His smile as he held out his hand in our first meeting 
was the same as when I saw him last, just before he was 
stricken down. He was hearty and princely in hospitality 
and cordial friendliness. In colleo^e he soon took hiofh 
rank. His honorary graduating oration on " The Seen and 
the Unseen, " suggests that he reached the heights of schol- 
arship. He was called the best, read historian in Congress. 
His speeches are original and suggestive. 

He entered college a Christian ; his voice was heard in 
prayer-meetings, and he worked with Hammond, the evan- 
gelist, in a backwoods mission Sunday school. Twenty-five 
years ago last 4th of July, a company of students spent the 
night on Mount Greylock. As they were lying down to 
sleep Garfield said ; " Boys, I read a chapter in the Bible 



240 PEliSONAL TRIBUTES TO GEN. GARFIELD. 

every night with my mother. If you please, I will read it 
aloud, " and afterward he asked the oldest of them to lead 
in prayer. 

One Sunday, 'some years ago, I preached here. He 
learned of it and came, bringing two classmates to hear 
me, and as we went away his talk was a pleasant and dis- 
criminating criticism of my sermon. 

But the best witness is his pastor's — that he was regular 
and faithful in his own church. That was the every-day 
religion that was at call when he was laid low, and that 
did not fail him in the face of death. And by such men 
the country is saved; such integrity and broad statesman- 
ship as his influencing other statesmen and elevating all. 
Some thought Christ's life of no avail in a wicked world: 
and some say, " What avails one good and wise man?" It 
avails much. God does not make such men in vain. 

After a while men will speak of Garfield along with Lin- 
coln and Washington. His life and character will be 
wrought into the Nation's life and character. They will 
quote his speeches — especially, I think, those of the sum- 
mer of 1880 — with Washington's farewell address and Lin- 
coln's Gettysburg speech. Men who fail to admire him 
will be ashamed to say so. The land is to be saved by 
largeness and greatness like his. There are also personal 
lessons to us each one. They are: 

First — The worth of work. Garfield worked during col- 
lege vacations. I knew him to work all night. His so- 
called "luck" was hard, unceasing work. 

Second — The worth of prayer. He was no stranger to 
prayer; and when he fell the Nation fell to praying with- 
out hesitation. Even IngersoU is said to have said — " God 
help us." We have learned a habit of prayer. 

Third — the worth of a complete character. Work and 
prayer make a complete man. Such was he. Such a one 



PERSONAL TRIBUTES TO GEN. GARFIELD. 241 

is useful in affairs, peaceful in the face of death, blessed in 
the memory of men. Such may we be. 



A FELLOW student's RECOLLECTIONS. 
I. A. Ebson, D.D., Indianapolis, Ind. 

The demands of an era like this will perhaps be met most 
fully if each tries frankly to say that which lies nearest to 
his own personality. It is too early to treat the tlieine 
exhaustively or elaborately. This man belongs to history 
and to the race. No small clan of partisans could encircle 
his greatness while he lived ; no sect, or party, or people 
has proprietorship of him now that he is dead. A student, 
a teacher, a clergyman, a soldier, a statesman, the President, 
with mother, wife and children around him, touched noble 
life at every point, and handled nothing which he did not 
dignify and adorn. 

My own immediate knowledge of James A. Garfield was 
as a fellow student at Williams College. In the autumn of 
1852, entering as sophomore, I was lodged in old West Col- 
lege, at the southwest corner of the second floor, with Phin- 
eas W. Hitchcock, who, having served as United States Sen- 
ator from Nebraska, died suddenly last July. Across the 
the narrow hall, with another student from New York Mills, 
was Garfield's class-mate, Ferdinand, now Colonel Rockwell, 
one of the prominent and beautiful figures of this chamber 
of suffering and death. After two years, arrived the future 
President, entering his class as junior and accompanied from 
the West by an associate who walked with crutches— the com- 
plete physical contrast ot his vigorous and symmetrical room- 
mate, though intellectual sympathy furnished ample grounds. 
for the close companionship. The two made a striking 
pair. For a time they sat with us at Mrs. Tyler's table. 

16 



242 PERSONAL TRIBUTES TO GEN. GARFIELD. 

Without delay Garfield won respect and admiration. Al- 
ready he had that marvelous friendliness of manner which 
afterward conquered everything. He was transparent 
and natural. He had the habits of morality and re- 
ligion. His mind possessed both breadth and sym- 
metry. He was powerful in debate. His chosen objects 
he pursued with tremendous energy and enthusiasm. Long 
before a year had passed he was a recognized leader. There 
were manifold prophecies of coming eminence. And the 
man left College, as he was to leave Congress, without an 
enemy." 



riEN. SIBLEY S TRIBUTE. 
St. Paul, Sept. 26, 1881. 

Fellow-citizens :- -We have met together this day to 
perform our part of a sad and solemn duty. In common 
with millions of our countrymen at this hour, when the 
lifeless body of the late president of the Republic is being 
entombed in tlie city of Cleveland, we assemble to mourn 
his untimely death, and to evince our profound respect for 
for his memory. It seems but a little time since his inau- 
guration, whon his clarion voice gave utterance to patriotic 
sentiments which thrilled the public heart, and inspired the 
conviction that he would rise above all sectional and party 
trammels, and administer the government with a single 
eye to the general welfare. 

Less than four months had elapsed when the horror and 
consternation, not only of our citizens, but of foreign na- 
tions, and in a time of peace and general prosperity, the 
bullet of a base and cowardly assassin found a lodgment in 
the vitals of the president and closed his earthly existence, 
after a gallant struggle for life of nearly three months of 
fearful suffering. During this interval, the solicitude of 



PERSONAL TRIBUTES TO GEN. GARFIELD. 243 

our people for his recovery was universal, and alternate 
hope and fear agitated them with emotion as tender and 
touching as though manifested by a loving mother at the 
bedside of her sick child. But the fiat of the most high 
had gone forth, and the prayers of united Christendom were 
unavailing to save the life of the illustrious sufferer. 

It does not become us to seek to penetrate the mys- 
teries of the infinite, or to be wise above what is written. 
With resignation to His will who holds in His hand the des- 
tinies of nations, we are permitted to extract some consola- 
tion from the event we so much deplore. It has had the 
effect to bring together in the close bonds of a common 
grief, the North, the South, the East and the West, to 
soften and diminish sectional and party animosities; to 
quicken the national conscience; to waft us back to the faith 
of our fathers, and to make us realize more vividly that 
-" The Lord God omnipotent reigneth." 

While, therefore, we join in lamenting the loss the coun- 
try has sustained, deeply sympathizing with the aged 
mother, the devoted widow and the bereaved children in 
their affliction, let us take comfort in the reflection that the 
nation moves on to accomplish its general mission, un- 
checked and unimpeded even by the death of its best. 
Ood save the Republic I 



Garfield's death and its lessons. 

By Ret. J. P. Bodpish, deUvered in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston, 

Sept. 25, 1881. 

It is a solemn thing to stand at any time in the presence 
of death. The sight of marks of mourning upon the door, 
our entrance into the darkened chamber, and our meeting 
with the sorrowful, grief-stricken family, are all intended 
■to chasten and subdue our hearts. 



244 PERSONAL TRIBUTES TO GEN. GARFIELD. 

These seasons of mourning should not go bj unheeded. 
Tliey should teach us that all things earthly are vanity, 
ending in death. To-day we are called upon to witness an 
extraordinary sight. It is riot alone one family we see in 
mourning, not alone one circle of relatives bowed down in 
grief, but truly and sincerely a nation weeps. How keenly 
we realize that we are all members of that one nation, of 
one body politic, and when its head is stricken low the 
whole body is affected. The great and noble man who so 
lately presided over its destinies is gone. Noble son of a 
worthy mother, fighting against poverty, with a strong 
ambition to do g^ood deeds — when we think of the struffMe 
he made to educate himself, to prepare himself for public 
life, we recognize in him only the able, just man, who 
aimed at nothing but the Nation's good. 

After his labors, then, to fit himself for the highest gift 
in the Nation, we see him cut down by an assassin's hand, 
and a whole country agonized throughout its length and 
breadth. I should be wanting in my duty to-day, if I did 
not, as the occasion suggests, pay my tribute to this good 
man, and strive to derive from his sad death some of the 
great lessons which Providence teaches us. 

As Catholics and members of the Koman Church, not 
only do we join with our neighbors in the general grief, 
but we have a special horror at the act that has been com- 
mitted. "We 'should remember that the Catholic Church 
has been, throughout the world and the world's history, the 
bulwark of civil order, and she has at all times urged upon 
her children to do their part in preserving civil law and 
civil government. Often have prelates and priests of onr 
church been called upon to aid in the preservation of con- 
Btitutional authority, and they have always responded, 
though it be at the peril of their lives. 

When we find socialism, communism or the spoils sys- 



PERSONAL TRIBUTES TO GEN. GARFIELD. 245 

tern culminating in the assassination of a good man, there 
is no heart so profoundly shocked as the Catholic heart. 

And there are many iessons to be drawn from the occur- 
rence. It shows us that we are one; that, in the presence 
of death we are -all united; that partisan bitterness and 
even sectional strife is hushed beneath the sorrow of one 
common affliction. In the record of this man, who was so 
distinctively an American statesman, and so natural an 
outcome of our glorious American institutions, we are 
taught that good men and true are appreciated. 

What a lesson to young men, growing up under the fos- 
tering care of American civilization! Would you be be- 
loved'by your fellow-citizens, and your death mourned by 
a nation? Then imitate the illustrious dead. Be a man, 
good and true and without reproach, and the end will sure- 
ly be a glorious one. " God reigns, and the government still 
lives," said Garfield. And the government does live, and 
may all honest and intelligent citizens of every creed and 
race and color join to-day in a renewed act of consecration 
to those institutions which have done so much to develop 
liberty and fraternity among us. 

MRS. GARFIELD. 

See her, like a ministering angel, by day and by night 
at his side, bearing up to the last with undaunted courage. 
See her, with a true, womanly reserve, shrinking from all 
publicity; and see her, alone by his bier, still hiding her 
sorrow, whose depth no man can fathom, no mind contem- 
plate, but God's. 

What a lesson to Catholic women ! What a lesson to every 
voun- woman, and to every wife and mother! Throughout 
the whole civilized world there is not a heart, however stern, 
but will do her the honor she so richly deserves. It is the 
lesson of the true wife and mother. These are the qualities 



246 PERSONAL TRIBUTES TO GEN. GARFIELD. 

the world honors; this is woman's sphere, indeed, and this the 
sacred duty she alone can fulfill. Ah, ray dear friends, re- 
member, in the hour of your own affliction, the wife and 
niother who will sit by your side and smooth your pillow. 
Honor, and love and cherish her, for she is truly the angel 
of your household through all your days. Let us, then, 
mourn over the Nation's dead, and pray with fervor, for 
we have, as our text tells us, "lost some great heart." Let 
us pray tliat the children of the dead President may grow 
up in usefulness and strength, following in the footsteps 
of tlieir father, and by the light of their good lives cheering 
and sustaining their heart-broken mother. Let us, too, 
not forget that aged, grief-stricken woman, who, parting 
with the cherished son of her bosom, sees her "darling 
boy" brought back to her a corpse. And, in all our 
prayers, in all our grief, let us take to heart the lessons of 
the calamity that has overtaken us, and so strive to conduct 
ourselves that the reward to come may be ours through 
eternity. 



A PUPIL'S TRIBUTE. 



BY F. E. Udell, one of Garfield's Students at Hiram CoUege. 
- Delivered at the Memorial Servlces'.ln St. Louis, Sept. 26, 1881. 

For nearly thirty years I have had an intimate acquain- 
tance with Mr. Garfield. As a member of the same house- 
hold, as a fellow-student, as a pupil, in our church relations 
as a member of the same congregation, and later associated 
with him as trustees of Hiram College and a constituent 
and supporter is his congressional district, I have had op- 
portunities, such as perhaps no other person present, of an 
intimate knowledge of his inner life, of his school days 
and his young manhood. 

I first went to Hiram College, then the '' Western Ke- 
serve Eclectic Institute, " in 1853, and there first met James 
A. Garfield. He was at that time a student at this school, 
and also teaching a few classes to pay his way. I remem- 
ber him as a stout, hale, well developed young man of 
twenty-one, plainly clad, but of striking physique and 
bearin.'-. He was a hard student, burning the midnight oil 
for six'nights in the week, and by thus applying himself to 
his studies, he in three years' time crowded six years of 
study, and thus in this short space of time fitted himself to 
enter the junior class, besides at the same time teachmg 

(247) 



248 ^ PUPIL'S TRIBUTE. 

t 
for liis support. To accomplish this he shut the whole 

world out from his raiud, save that portion within the 
rano-e of his studies, knowin<y little of the news of the day, 
reading no light literature, and engaging in no social re- 
creations that took his time from his books. 

As a student and as a scholar of great promise, he had 
no equals in that school, and in native ability and already 
acquired brilliancy he stood head and shoulders above his 
classmates, and was often spoken of in laudatory terms by 
all who knew him. But notwithstanding all this — and he 
was certainly conscious of his attainments — he was never 
susceptible to flattery, never exhibited the least arrogance, 
but was as humble as when a boy he supported his wid- 
owed mother by the sweat of his brow, unconscious of the 
latent possibilities of that great head and heart. 

As a teacher he was unexcelled. How vividly can I now 
see that manly form, with his large, well-developed head, 
standing on the platform before his class, chalk in hand, 
his pleasant luminous face, and clear silvery voice, explain- 
ing and demonstrating the problem before him. He was 
par excelUiioe the best teacher I ever recited to, and he 
was loved by all his pupils. I might also speak of his 
forensic powers, at this early period of his life, in the liter- 
ary society of the school, and also of his occasional addresses 
in the church, but time forbids ; sufiice to say, he was then 
as in later life a fluent speaker and a devoted earnest 
Christian. 

It would have been a source of gratification to me to 
have been at Cleveland to-day and to have dropped a tear 
on his casket, but it affords me a still greater satisfaction to 
be here in the quiet of this sympathizing brotherhood to 
testify to his great worth and his Christian manhood, and 
the love and adoration I bore him, and with you to weep 
over his grave. It is not so much for the dead President 1 



A PUPWS TRIBUTE 249 

mourn as the dead Garfield. Others eulogized him for hi» 
great statesmanship, his nobility of character and his well- 
developed manhood. I loved and reverenced him most 
because he had a warm, loving heart, because of his nobility 
of soul, and because he was a true friend. Most men, when 
elevated to high positions, grow away from the humble 
friends of their earlier days. Not so with Jas. A. Garfield. 

I shall never forget the hearty greeting with which he 
always met an acquaintance in his school days, and to feel 
the grasp of that honest, sturdy hand impressed you that 
you had met one of God's noblemen. And all through the 
years since then, no matter what station he occupied, or how 
weighed down with the labors and responsibilities of his 
otiice, this quality of the man has ever remained the same. 
Any son of toil who had known him in his earlier life could 
approach him without the least embarrassment or trepi- 
dation, and would be met by that same warm, cordial greet- 
ing as in days of yore. In his presence you would forget he 
was the leader of his party in the house, that he was Senator 
or that he was President, and for the moment he would be 
to you your old, kind, big-hearted friend Garfield. 

I deem it the greatest honor of my life to have had his 
acquaintance and friendship, and to have been his pupil, 
and as to-day 1 see the whole world moved to affectionate 
tears over the death of this one man, as never in the history 
of civilization they were moved before, it is with a thrill of 
justifiable pride tliat I can say of my own personal knowl- 
edge of the mat), he was worthy of all these honors, and I 
thank God that such a man has lived and left the impress of 
this grand life upon this and all succeeding generations, and 
that it is my privilege, with the other fifty millions of our 
free America, besides the millions in other lands, to give 
expression to the sorrow I feel over the death of the Presi- 
dent — the statesman, the Christian — my friend. 



A WISE MAN, 



By Rev. Dr. Sprolb. 



Delivered at the Memorial Service In the First Street Presbyterian Church, Detroit, 

Mich., Sept. 26, 1881. 
Among those present was Solomon Davis, who now resides at 760 Jefferson avenue 
When butseven years of age he, with his father in Vermont, attended the funeral servi- 
ces of George Washington, and, wherever held, has attended those of every deceased 
President of the United States. This circumstance was mentioned by Dr. Plerson, 
and all eyes were turned to the pew where sat the venerable man whose personal 
recollection extend back into the eighteenth century. 

The inspired record tells us that when Stephen fell by 
the ungodly, devout men carried him to burial and made 
ffreat lamentation over his mutilated form. We are en- 
gaged to-day in these solemn services, while others, devout 
and undevout, are carrying to their last resting place the 
remains of our beloved President. He was cut off from 
his usefulness at a time when it was most desirable that he 
should live; at a time when desire for continued life was a 
righteous emotion. He had disappointed the hopes of his 
enemies and surprised his friends by the wisdom he dis- 
played in the high office. 

God directed us in the choice of our Chief Magistrate, 
and when his sun was shining in all its noon -tide glory, it 
was extinguished. "Why is this? It is one of God's mys- 
teries, and He alone can unravel it. " What I do thou 
knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." It is no 

(250) 



A WISE MAN. 251 

wonder that the people of our and other Christian lands 
mourn his taking off. But few equaled liim in those ele- 
ments that make man the image of his Maker. Ilis dis- 
tinguishing characteristic was his great loving heart. 
Though sorely tried, it never failed. 

The elevation of James A. Garfield to the Presidential 
chair did not change his character. As a teacher of a 
country school; President of a College; taking up arms in 
defense 'of his country; in the halls of Congress, in the 
Presidential chair; while hanging upon the borders of the 
grave for weeks, he ever manifested the same gentle, loving 
spirit. How touching are the thoughtfully worded tele- 
grams sent to his mother and wife, calming and soothing 
their fears. Such a man! Such a loss! I can't quite un- 
derstand it. Did I not know the wisdom and goodness of 
God, I might question its right; but I dare not do it. 

Why did Goa keep him hanging there so long on the 
brink of the grave ? It might be to prepare the Nation for 
the great loss it was to suffer. It might be to start the 
tears of the Nation from the mountains to the great waters, 
and cement more closely the brotherhood of States. It 
may have been to bring the hearts of trans-Atlantic nations 
closer to us. It has had its practical lesson, for it has dem- 
onstrated that our Nation does not hang upon the life of a 
single individual. 

The Rev. D. M. Cooper then read, and the choir sang 
the following dirge from the pen of D. Bethune Dufiield : 

L 

ToU, 
Aye toU, ye mournful bells, 
A world-wide passing knell 

Toll for a hero's soul. 



Drape, 
And sadly drop the flag 



252 A WISE MAN. 

Half-mast o'er land and sea, 

And bind each door with crape. 



Weep, 
Ye stricken people weep. 
Around the hallowed bier 

Of Garfield's silent sleep. 

IV. 

Great, 
Sublimely great and brave 
Was this our chosen chief, 

In battle or debate. 

V. 

Love, 
Whole-souled, deep love wa* hte. 
For country, home and truth, 

Like to that love above. 

VI. 

Write 
Amid the stars and stripes- 
Write high his worthy name, 

'T will make the stars more bright. 

VII. 

Praise, 
Yes, praise the Lord on higli. 
For all he was to rs. 

While heavenward we gaze. 

vni. 

Well, 
" He doeth all things well," 
For age to distant age 

His name and lame shall telL 

IX 

Fetrs, 
No. not one fear for him, 
Nor for our smitten land, 

Tho' flood- like fall our tears. 



Toll, 
Yes, toll, ye mournful bells. 
And roll, ye muffled drums, 
Farewell, oh, noble soul. 

Farewell. 



i 



MEMORY. 



BY JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



Tms little poem, from the pen of the President, was 
written before his first term in Conoress — hence some 
twenty years ago. At that time, possibly, the Presidency 
of a Christian college was tlie " summit where the sun- 
beams fell," but the last lines are all but a prophecy: 

'Tis beauteous night; the stars look brightly down 
Upon the earth, decked in her robe of snow. 
No light gleams at the window, save my own, 
Which gives its cheer to midnight and to me. 
And now, with noiseless step, sweet memory comeg, 
And leads me gently through her twilight realms. 
What poet's tuneful lyi-e has ever sung. 
Or delicate pen e'er portrayed, i 

The enchanted, shadowy land where memory dwells? 
It has its valleys, cheerless, lone and drear, 
Dark-shaded by the mournful cypress tree; 
And yet its sunlit mountain tops are bathed 
In heaven's own blue. Dpou its ciaggy cliffs, 
Robed in the dreamy light of distant years, 
Are clustered joys serene of other days; 
Upon its gentle, sloping hillsides bend 
The weeping willows o'er the sacred dust 
Of dear departed ones; and yet in that land, 
Where'er our footsteps fall upon the shore, 
They that were sleeping rise from out the doit 
(253) 



254 MEMORY. 

Of death's long, silent years, and round us stand. 

As erst they did before the prison tomb 

Received their clay within its voiceless halls. 

The heavens that bend above that land are hung 

With clouds of various hues. Some dark and chill, 

Surcharged with sorrow, cast with somber shade 

Upon the sunny, joyous land below. 

Others are floating through the dreamy air, 

White as the falling snow, their margins tinged 

With gold and crimsoned hues; their shadows fall 

Upon the flowery meads and sunny slopes, 

Soft as the shadow of an ange^l's wing. 

^^ hen the rough battle of the day is done, 

And evening's peace falls gently on the heart, 

I bound away, across the noisy years, 

Unto the utmost verge of memory's land, 

Where earth and sky in dreamy distance meet. 

And memory, dim with dark oblivion, joins, 

W here woke the first remembered sounds that fell 

Upon the ear in childhood's early mom; 

And, wandering thence along the rolling years, 

1 see the shadow of my former self, 

Gliding from childhood up to man's estate. 

The path of youth winds down through many a TaJe 

And on the brink of many a dread abyss, 

From out whose darkness comes no ray of light, 

Save that a phantom dances o'er the gulf 

And beckons toward the verge. Again the path 

Leads o'er the summit where the sunbeams fall; 

And thus in light and shade, sunshine and gloom, 

borrow and joy, the life-path leads along. 



THE END. 



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